


Synergy

by polytropic



Category: Emelan - Tamora Pierce, The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Gen, Mentions of alcoholism, Multi, emotional abuse and manipulation by a spouse, mentions of suicidal ideation, real world situational trauma: slavery and colonialism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-26
Updated: 2014-09-26
Packaged: 2018-02-18 20:46:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2361635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polytropic/pseuds/polytropic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Athos might have reconsidered earning his mage credentials if he'd known he would be saddled with a student. His, Aramis' and Porthos' job is to teach d'Artagnan about his newly-discovered Gift...but maybe none of them understand magic as well as they think they do. Circle of Magic-esque AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Synergy

**Author's Note:**

> This work was written for the 2014 BBC Musketeers Big Bang! The incredible art included here is by lynndyre.dreamwidth.org, and there is also a beautiful trailer made by samhawke.tumblr.com right here: http://samhawke.tumblr.com/post/98398682091/synergy. Thank you so much to both of these amazingly talented artists for collaborating with me!

The Red Mage Academy was directly across the street from the Musketeer’s garrison. Considering how many times Athos had been given cause to curse that fact, he judged it particularly unjust that it was providing him with no recourse now.

“I am not a teacher,” he insisted with mounting despair. “There are twenty qualified, licensed mages a moment’s walk away, surely one of them is better suited!”

Master Treville looked weary. He fixed Athos with a gaze that said he expected better of him.

“If you recalled even one sentence of your training you would know that as the discovering mage, it is your responsibility to teach the discovered talent until a suitable master can be found.”

Athos pressed his lips together. It was a little rich to call him the discovering mage when the boy had thrown himself sword-first into Athos’ sight. When Aramis had cajoled them all into learning to see magic he’d neglected to mention that it would apparently shackle Athos to an unwanted duty at the first glance of silver fire along the edge of a grief-stricken boy’s blade.

It was the recollection of how that fire had blazed that made him pause now. Unsuited to it as he was, he knew that kind of power needed training. And something told him this d’Artagnan lad wasn’t going to find a welcome reception at the Academy, not after spending a week helping the Musketeers indict one of their Masters.

Athos sighed. At the very core of it, he owed Master Treville his sword, and he owed his sword his life. If the time had come to repay that debt, he would do so.

But damned if he was letting those other two assholes off easy.

“Porthos and Aramis saw it too, the same time I did.”

Treville did not look impressed to see a Musketeers Journeyman carrying tales like a child. He couldn’t quite hide the twitch of his mouth in his moustache, though.

“Did they now. Well then he’s the responsibility of all three of you. See to it that he is made aware of his new circumstances, get him meditating at the very least, and report back to me tomorrow at the sixth bell.” He bent his head over his paperwork in a clear dismissal. Athos bowed, and obeyed.

His fellow Journeymen were waiting directly outside the door and doing a poor job of pretending not to eavesdrop. Athos glared at them, and continued down the steps at a less-than-considerate pace. Porthos, with his long legs, adjusted immediately; Aramis managed to make jogging to keep up look elegant.

“We’re to all three instruct him,” he informed them.

“Dropped us into the stew with you, did you,” Porthos said, grinning. “Suppose the lad’ll do better with three teachers instead of one?”

“Of course he will! I always fancied myself an instructor. I have a lot of wisdom to share.” They both glanced at Aramis, Porthos amused, Athos incredulous. He paused. “That was meant to sound less inappropriate than it came out.”

“There’s a first.” Porthos clapped him on the back hard enough to knock him forward a step, and grinned. “I’m looking forward to this.”

~~

“Absolutely not. Mages? In my house? I won’t have it. Magic is not a respectable profession and I won’t have a lodger paying his rent with copper charmed to look like gold.”

Athos grit his teeth together, and shifted further in front of Porthos in case Aramis’ restraining hand on his arm wasn’t sufficient to hold him back. Aramis’ eyes were gleaming, angry and speculative, and Athos stepped on his foot for good measure.

“Monsieur Bonaceiux, I assure you that the opportunity to study with the King’s Musketeers is an honorable and respectable one,” he said. Monsieur Bonaceuix fixed him with a sour glare.

“And…wait, just a…hold on, that doesn’t matter, there’s been a mistake.” D’Artagnan did not seem overly insulted by the suggestion that his new landlord considered him less than respectable; he was looking at Athos with a faint smile of polite confusion. “I don’t have magic. Your…whatever measurement device you use must be faulty, father had the mage come when I was young and he said I didn’t have the Gift.”

“There, see, this is all a misunderstanding.” Constance had a way of glaring at Athos that reminded him strongly of his governess as a child; it said that she didn’t think he was wicked, she just thought he was rather dim. “Seems to be a lot of that going around lately.”

“Come now, it’s been almost six hours since people were accusing one another of murder, that’s all in the past now.” Aramis was apparently trying for a personal record of being slapped twice by the same woman in one day. He slid around Athos into the middle of the room, and gestured languidly towards d’Artagnan.

“You, my friend, may not have the kind of magic a mage-finder sniffs out, but you most certainly have magic. I’ll show you. With, of course, the permission of our hosts.” Neither Athos nor Monsieur Bonacieux missed that he clearly looked to Constance for permission, not her husband, and that when she nodded he turned his gaze to d’Artganan without waiting for further input.

“Nothing’s happening,” d’Artagnan muttered after a few moments of Aramis gazing at him steadily, then yelped in shock. Bright silver fire sprung into visibility along his limbs, twined into the muscle there and linked to a tight, bright knot at his heart. d’Artagnan gaped. Monsieur Bonacieux backed away with a muttered oath. Constance reached for the mantle to steady herself, her eyes wide.

“It’s called ambient magic,” Aramis explained. In Athos and Porthos’ vision his eyes sparked gold, and in an answering flash d’Artagnan’s hands began to glow as well. Slowly the shape of a person wielding a rapier formed out of the silver fire. “Mages ordained by the Church are able to learn specific spells through study and practice. Ambient mages enact magic through the practice of skills. d’Artagnan’s Gift shows through fencing, at least for now.”

“Fencing?” d’Artagnan was staring at his own hands and arms in shock. Very slowly, he dropped into a lunge, one they’d seen him use only that morning. Silver flowed down to his feet and up from his chest out past the tip of his outstretched hand. That was a good, fluid motion, Athos noted. No flickering in his power or stutters in his muscles; a good start.

At which point Monsieur Bonaceiux saw fit to ruin the moment. “Not only a mage, then, but a blasphemous one? I want him out of my house tonight.”

Porthos hissed between his teeth; they both saw Aramis’ eyes flash again, golden and furious.

“All magic is a gift from God, Monsieur. d’Artagnan’s Gift is no different in origin or value than that of the most holy of Seers. You disrespect the Lord’s creation and those who work in its service.”

There was a very quiet, uncomfortable pause where Athos considered that he ought probably to apologize on Aramis’ behalf but couldn’t quite bring himself to.

“Isn’t he too old?” Constance said. She was still holding on to the mantle, and her fingers clenched once, tips turning white, and then released. “The Gifted ones go into training when they’re wee lads, surely it’s too late?”

“I think this is the first time anyone has called me too old,” d’Artagnan noted, and Porthos’ deep chuckle broke some of the tension in the room.

“Us ambient mages are different. Most’ve us, we’ve got to learn the craft before the magic does much of anything. Means you’re never too old to learn,” he explained. “Several Musketeers discovered their Gift after they joined the regiment.”

“There, see?” Constance brightened considerably at that news, and put a hand on her husband’s arm. “The King’s Musketeers count mages among them, mages just like d’Artagnan is. Would the King have them in his service if their magic was blasphemous or dishonorable?”

“Hrmph,” was Monsieur Bonaceiux’s reply, which Athos took to be agreement. “He’s not to practice magic under this roof.”

“d’Artagnan ought not to be practicing any magic without one of us around for the time being in any case,” Athos said. “Speaking of which: lessons. d’Artagnan, if you will.”

He turned on his heel and exited, getting a hand around Aramis’ arm as he went to make sure he came along. The last thing any of them needed was Aramis left alone with Monsieur Bonaceiux right now.

“That’s Athos’ way of asking politely if you’ll follow us, please,” Pothos rumbled behind him, and he and d’Artagnan came stomping down the stairs after.

“Thank you ever so much for making my living situation extremely uncomfortable from now on,” d’Artagnan informed them all sourly.

“Our pleasure. Turn here.”

“S’not like we gave you the magic. It’d’ve broken out on its own soon enough, you take my word on that,” Porthos said. Athos wondered, not for the first time, what Porthos’ process of discovering his magic had been; all he knew was that Porthos’ hold on his power had been impeccable ever since he joined the regiment.

“And I’m sure that horse’s ass in there would have loved an out-of-control mage in his spare room.” Aramis, apparently, was still annoyed.

“I still don’t understand how I can have magic that the mage-finder couldn’t see.” Aramis bent to unlock the door to the garrison’s meditation room; Porthos was already gathering up the cloths they used to block the windows when a mage needed a little help screening out distractions. That left Athos to answer the question.

“Ambient magic comes from interacting with the world.” The door came open and he ushered d’Artagnan inside. The walls and floor were completely bare, and apart from a stack of cushions in one corner, the room was completely empty. “I’ll bet that at home on your farm, you had one or two people who had a tiny bit of the Gift, didn’t you? Not enough to warrant training, but enough that they were always called to the difficult births, or to make sure the harvest came in?”

D’Artagnan nodded.

“That’s ambient magic. Likely at least one of those had a fair bit more magic than you thought; it just shows itself differently. The amount of power it takes to sink a ship or throw fire at an opposing army is great, to be sure, but so is the power to revive a farmed-out field.”

“Had a man where I grew up who could work any kind of wood. The worst splintered salvage, you brought it to him and he turned out a roof over your head,” Porthos offered from the corner where he was methodically blocking out the light. Athos raised an eyebrow. Porthos didn’t often willingly share stories of his childhood; apparently he was taking this teaching duty quite seriously.

“So how does one even find out they’re an ambient mage, then?”

“Oh, the mage-sniffers find some of us.” Aramis had finished with his side of the room and appeared at Athos’ side. “Will you ward us please Porthos?”

“You should practice, you know.” Despite his chiding Porthos motioned them all into the middle of the room.

“Watch this,” Aramis told d’Artagnan. “It’s a sight.”

Porthos glanced up from his careful pacing in a circle and grinned. He planted his feet carefully and took a breath in; d’Artagnan stiffened, and Athos noted that even he could feel the power gather in the air.

“ _Hold_ ,” Porthos boomed, not loud but overwhelming. A protective circle practically leapt into being around them, tall and absolutely impenetrable, glowing the deep strong bronze of Porthos’ power.

“Barely even has to try. Know how long it would take a Church mage to raise a circle like that?” Aramis smirked and clapped Porthos on the shoulder.

“Raising a protective circle stops outside influence from interfering with a working, and keeps the working inside from spilling over,” Athos explained, since his comrades were apparently too busy showing off to do so.

“We’re going to be doing a working?” d’Artagnan looked dubious but game to try, which considering he hadn’t known he had magic until an hour ago was either brave or extremely foolish. Athos had never really figured out where the line was there in any case.

“Not quite. We’re going to show you how to meditate.”

Aramis and Porthos settled on either side of d’Artagnan, Aramis in the conventional meditation pose of the Church (on bent knees, hands clasped in front, head bowed) and Porthos with his legs tucked underneath him and his arms braced on his thighs.

“Find a position you can sit comfortably in for some time,” Athos instructed, and settled down himself, legs crossed in front of him. Aramis and Porthos closed their eyes, and within moments Athos watched their power bloom out around them. As always, Porthos’ held close to his body, a throbbing powerful bronze glow that lit his dark skin, while Aramis’ sparked off his hair and fingertips in little flecks of shining gold, jumped towards the barrier briefly as if to say hello, then reluctantly slunk back to hover in the air around him.

D’Artagnan looked around the circle, then tentatively copied Athos’ pose. At a nod from Athos he closed his eyes.

“Try to clear your mind of any thoughts.” D’Artagnan’s brow furrowed. It was, Athos admitted, a strange instruction. How had Treville explained it? Ah. “Focus on your breathing instead. Try to fit your breathing into a count: in for seven, hold for seven, out for seven.” D’Artagnan’s breathing got conspicuously louder in the silent room. “Don’t force it.” Another frown of confusion. “Just relax, and breathe. When your mind is clear, try to feel your magic inside of you: locate it, and let it fill your body.”

He felt himself slipping into his own meditation. It was always so easy with Aramis and Porthos around; the rhythm of their breathing caught his own without him noticing. Slowly his magic began to leak out into the air, an insubstantial gray mist, always difficult to coax into appearing and apt to duck back inside him at the first hint of—

D’Artagnan sighed, squirmed, and shifted position. Athos’ magic fled. His eyes flew open and he glared, briefly but fiercely. D’Artagnan, with his eyes closed, didn’t notice. Aramis’ mouth twitched, barely visible behind his piously clasped hands. His eyes were still closed, but with Aramis, that didn’t mean much.

Athos settled back again, focused on his power, and managed to make it almost ten minutes before d’Artagnan twitched and shattered his concentration. Athos saw his brow furrow and his mouth form the words ‘not working’ before he sighed and tried again.

“Did you find your core the first time you meditated?” Athos asked Aramis and Porthos softly when they’d finished the hour and sent d’Artagnan home with instructions to meet them the next morning in Master Treville’s office.

“Me? Yeh. Right rattled my first Master, too, he wouldn’t get in a circle with me again after that.” Porthos shrugged a little, smug. He seemed to like it when his power unnerved people, or at least to have chosen to enjoy it since he could not avoid it.

“Not me. Took months,” Aramis volunteered. “Not that my magic ever really did what it’s told.”

Aramis, Athos knew, had been marked as one with the Sight at the normal age of five years or so, and taken to the Church to be trained as all such children were. But try as they might they had not been able to get Aramis to have visions of the future, or the far past, or of Heaven’s glory, the way the Church’s ordained Seers did. Instead Aramis saw fleeting things: desires in the hint of a smile; the movement of a target over a rifle’s barrel; the weak points in an opponent’s stance. It was magic, probably, but not the kind the Church knew how to teach, so he had come to the Musketeers.

When he began learning, Athos had been spilling power so uncontrollably that meditation had been less about finding his core and more about containing it. But for most mages, he knew, building their power started when they found the source of it inside of themselves and learned to draw it out.

“How did you find it?” he asked Porthos.

“Dunno. He sat me down, told me to keep my gutter trash mouth shut and behave—” Athos started with surprise, and then again at the flash of gold light from his left. Aramis tended to spark like a campfire when enraged. “—and there it was, nice and warm and asking to be used. I told him he ought to choke on his tongue since he couldn’t keep it civil. Apparently, he couldn’t speak for three days.”

“Where is this man now, do you think?” Athos inquired pleasantly. His hands felt warm, rushing with blood and magic, almost sharp enough to cut on their own.

“Teaching at the Red Mage Academy. But not for long,” Aramis answered immediately. His eyes were bright and far-away, and he wet his lips slowly. Athos reflected that perhaps you knew a man too well when you could pinpoint what kind of violence he was contemplating based on his facial ticks.

“This is all very flattering, but no thank you.” Porthos put a hand on Aramis’ shoulder. “The insult he offered me has been avenged, and as you know, a Master has the right to speak to an apprentice however he pleases.”

“You were _eleven_ ,” Aramis hissed.

“And he wasn’t worth my time then. Or yours now.” Porthos shook Aramis’ shoulder until the glow in his eyes faded and the stiffness of his spine relaxed.

 ~~~

Hearing about Porthos’ first Master made Athos renew his thankfulness for Master Treville. He knew he owed the man so many debts: for seeing power in him when no one else, not even himself, ever had; for demonstrating with unflinching coldness the dangers of mixing magic with alcohol and stopping his downward spiral before he became a danger to more than just himself; and for bringing him to the Musketeers and to his brothers. But he had not realized he also owed him a debt for the respect with which he had treated him: the lack of contempt despite how clearly he deserved it, the acknowledgement that Athos was both an apprentice and an adult with a right to determine his own fate.

“So it’s true what they say, the minute your apprentice gets one of his own he suddenly appreciates you again,” Master Treville noted with clear amusement when Athos’ bow of greeting carried more deference than usual. Athos didn’t correct him; it was close enough to the truth.

“He was your Master?” d’Artagnan had seemed intimidated when they first showed him to the Master’s office, but he lost that soon enough and was now looking around with interest.

“I am his Master,” Treville corrected. “Just as Athos, Aramis and Porthos will be your Masters for the rest of your life, even if you should happen to earn your Journeyman and eventual Master status. The bond between apprentice and teacher should enrich both, even after the need for teaching is done.”

“You’re stuck with us for life,” Porthos interpreted cheerfully. D’Artagnan grinned back at him, not seeming very bothered by the prospect.

“Not quite yet.” Master Treville fixed d’Artagnan with a serious gaze. “First I must know that you understand the responsibility it is to wield magic, and the privilege it is to do so under the tutelage of the King’s Musketeers.”

“I do, sir.” D’Artagnan bore up well under the scrutiny, Athos noted; his spine straightened and his chin raised. He was treating this with the solemnity it deserved. “I am honored to have this opportunity and I will not disappoint you.”

“Hm.” Master Treville was pleased, Athos could tell. He doubted d’Artagnan could, however. “We shall see. D’Artagnan of Lupiac in Gasconny, do you swear to use your Gift in the service of France and the King, to defend the honor of the Royal Musketeers, with your life if necessary, and to respect and obey your Masters in all things?”

“I do sir.”

“Porthos du Vallon. Do you swear to guide and educate d’Artagnan in the use of his Gift, to instill in him the honor and values of the King’s Musketeers, and assume responsibility for his actions and workings while under your care?”

“I do sir.” Porthos looked a little overcome with emotion, and Athos realized abruptly that Porthos might have wanted a student before this. Wanted one and assumed he would never be chosen, with his strange power and background.

“René—”

“Come now, that’s just cruel.”

“ _Aramis_ , do you swear…” Aramis, despite his comments yesterday about fancying himself an instructor, seemed shocked, as if the responsibility of this duty was only just now hitting him. His voice when he replied “I do,” gave no sign of it, however.

“Athos of the King’s Musketeers,” there was a kindness, that Master Treville spared him even now the pain of his old title.

“I do, sir,” he answered, and could not help the small smile. He had not wanted or expected this, but it felt like the start of something.

~~~

Athos had hoped that they would be able to leave d’Artagnan behind when they went on missions. Not because the lad was bad company, but because he felt instinctively that splitting the unit’s focus between teaching and an objective could only lead to substandard achievement of both. But it was barely three days since d’Artganan’s training began when someone found the trail of the King’s letters that had gone off-course, and Master Treville insisted that they leave at once, apprentice in tow.

Athos laid out some ground rules for d’Artagnan’s participation in this endeavor, with an emphasis on how his power was still untrained and unpredictable and therefore it was best for him to stay out of situations that might require combat. Those rules lasted about three hours, until d’Artagnan talked his way into going to prison to solicit information from a dangerous criminal.

“He can do this, Athos,” Aramis said as they watched d’Artagnan led off in chains after a spurious duel in which his untrained power had “broken out of control.” Sword dueling earned one a year in jail; magic dueling, a life’s imprisonment. They were hoping that Vadim, facing a life sentence himself, would find the story sympathetic.

“If you say it, I will endeavor to believe it,” Athos responded. His head spun considering all the things that could go wrong here. D’Artagnan might not get the information before the visit from the Queen that was his ticket out. He could give himself away, while locked in a room with a killer. Or, as Athos had insisted was likely, Vadim might have been lying when he bragged to a cellmate about stealing the Cardinal’s silver “right next to a pile of letters with the seal of Spain.” Maybe he had seen the letter but hadn’t looked inside. Maybe--

“Anyways, he did well at that little pageant.” Porthos nodded towards the dueling ground, a mess of foot- and hoof-prints now in the aftermath of the arrest.

“For someone who still can’t meditate, he does have good control over that power of his,” Aramis agreed.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t mediate exactly, Athos reflected later as he sat alone in his room, half-waiting for the knock on the door informing him it had all gone horribly wrong. Aramis had described his own troubles with meditating as an inability to clear his mind; d’Artagnan, after that first day, settled seemingly easily into the breathing pattern required, his face blank and peaceful. But when he was instructed to search inside of himself for his center, the bright core that fed his magic, Athos watched his eyes flicker, his brow furrow, his mouth tighten in frustration. “Are you _sure_ I have magic?” he’d asked the day before. He couldn’t even access his power yet, and they’d sent him into an _undercover mission_. This was all going to come crashing down around them, and Athos would be to blame.

Of all of the disaster scenarios he had concocted, he had not anticipated the prison break. Master Treville was explaining to the King right now how it was possible that Her Majesty had been taken hostage in the middle of a fortified prison yard; for his part, Athos got to deal with d’Artagnan, who had made his way back to them, had learned all Vadim had to know about the content of the letters, and was _refusing to come back in and end the mission_. Athos briefly and vividly contemplated knocking him over the head and locking him in the garrison until he came to his senses.

“He has accomplices,” d’Artagnan insisted, arms crossed in a worryingly stubborn posture. “If we take him now they’ll just continue with their plot. Which does not just concern getting out of Paris undetected, I’m certain of it. He’s planning something.”

“And I’m sure the jailers will find out all the details of his plan when you turn him over to them and end this before someone gets hurt,” Athos ordered. D’Artagnan shook his head. Athos was starting to think that perhaps they had not adequately explained to him the concept of an ‘order.’

“He has gunpowder. And a grudge against the Crown. That’s not a good combination, Athos.”

“Well at least tell us what was in those letters, first,” Aramis said before Athos could argue further. “He’s not going to change his mind; would you rather he go after Vadim on his own?” he muttered to Athos in passing. Athos sighed. No, he would not rather that.

“Do you remember what he said about the letter, at least?”

“Better than that; he drew it for me.” D’Artagnan produced a scrap of parchment with a flourish, and they all crowded around to see.

It was a ritual circle, Athos knew that much, but there his knowledge ended. Rituals were the provenance of the Church; their use was not even taught at the Red Mage Academy. Athos knew only what any son of the nobility might: that the five stations around the outside were where the participants would stand, that the pattern of keys along the outer rim marked it as a creation of the Pope himself, and that accompanying Latin, unfortunately not included, would explain its use and purpose.

“Aramis?” he asked the only one of them who had been trained, even briefly, in Church magic.

“They don’t exactly show bungling apprentice Seers the secrets of the holy rituals, Athos,” Aramis responded, with both humor and a hint of bitterness. He waved away Athos’ beginnings of a response, still studying the drawing. “Whatever it is, it is powerful. These stations all must be filled by an archmage; apart from our dear Cardinal, there are only eleven or twelve other archmages in Europe.”

“…so if anyone wants to use this, they’ve got to gather four more archmages,” Porthos commented, and Athos realized with a start that he was right. That was hopeful news indeed; whatever the Cardinal was planning, it was not going to be completed any time soon.

“Which means we have time to deal with Vadim first,” d’Artagnan concluded smugly, and proceeded to go almost get himself blown up. He had seen through the assassination as a diversion however, which not even Aramis’ Sight had caught, so when the dust settled even Athos was forced to admit that he was glad he had been convinced to involve him.

~~~

D’Artagnan acquitted himself well enough during the affair with Vadim that Athos felt more comfortable bringing him on the next mission. They were charged with bringing Emile Bonnaire, a trader in the service of the King, to Paris to face royal reprimand for unlawful dealings and violations of their treaty with Spain. His wife Maria, the missive had noted, must accompany him. The man himself was tiresome and arrogant, but his lady was charming; Aramis had to be quickly re-assigned to watch Bonnaire when Athos judged that too much laughter was coming from the back of the cart.

“Please refrain from inappropriate familiarity with prisoners of the King,” he snapped at Aramis when he appeared up front with that unapologetic grin. Aramis raised his eyebrows, and Athos looked away; he didn’t need Aramis’ expression telling him he was unusually on edge, he needed them to get through this stretch of the road without delay or diversion and leave la Frere lands far behind them.

“She loves him dearly, nothing untoward would have occurred,” Aramis replied in a slightly injured tone.

“She’s almost helped him escape once, I don’t need you distracted when she tries it ag—”

Aramis jerked Athos out of the way just in time; a musket ball tore through the canvas of the cart where his head had been. Athos swore and jumped down from the cart, drawing his sword; Aramis fired back and there was a cry of pain as the shooter was dispatched.

“Porthos, guard Bonnaire!” Athos shouted as he scanned the trees for their assailants. This was not the hired men from Bonnaire’s business partner, who had attacked them in the inn; these attackers were swift, hidden, and good shots.

His magic gave him a moment’s warning, and he brought his sword up, gray flowing behind it in an arc. A musket ball cracked itself against his shield.

“Mage! One’s a mage!” he heard from the trees, then a shout as Aramis’ bullet found its target.

Five black-clad men were rushing them now from the trees, and one of them was weaving some kind of spell as he ran; Athos could see it as a shimmer like heat in the air.

“Porthos!” he shouted.

“ _Break_!” The spell shattered before it was complete. Athos dispatched one attacker, shoved another towards d’Artagnan’s waiting guard, and locked blade with the third, and then Porthos cried out.

“Porthos!” Aramis was there instantly, and Porthos’ attacker fell before he could even remove his sword from Pothos’ shoulder. “Get in the cart!” Aramis shouted at Bonnaire and Maria, and Athos saw in a flash what had happened: they had been trying to escape, and Porthos had been hurt because they’d taken his attention off his opponent.

Fury extended his blade’s edge, insubstantial but cruel in its arc. The remaining men fell in a swathe, and Athos rushed to Porthos’ side.

“How bad?”

Aramis didn’t look away from Porthos, his eyes glowing bright gold. “Bad,” he said, shoulders tight.

“Can you walk?” Athos asked Porthos without much hope, and grit his teeth when Porthos could not answer, his breath coming harsh and fast. “Get him on the cart, we’ll get well away from here and then rest.”

“He cannot be moved.”

No. No, they were not staying here. “We won’t go far. Get him on the cart.”

“Athos—” d’Artagnan tried to intervene and Athos cut him off, his head starting to roar with white panic.

“ _Get him on the cart_.”

“He. Will. Die.” Aramis was suddenly in front of him, eyes wide and golden. “What’s wrong with you? Must I show you what I see when you tell me he must be moved? Do you need to see his dead body, the way I am? This is Porthos!”

The surging in Athos’ head grew, and for a moment he could not move, could not breathe. _This is Porthos_ , he told himself, and made himself nod, made himself order,

“I know a place, then. D’Artagnan, guard Bonnaire and Maria. This way, come.”

His stomach was roiling sickly and his head was buzzing by the time they reached the house. He threw open the doors violently, as if he could shove all the memories back with them; it did not work.

Porthos was mumbling now, loss of blood starting to fuzz his mind. That was dangerous; power rolled under his words, and the air around him was starting to gleam bronze. They heaved him up onto the table; he groaned but had enough sense left to bite his tongue on a protest that might have come out furled with magic.

“Athos, quickly please,” Aramis said, already threading the needle. Athos placed the blow carefully, snapping Porthos’ head to the side.

“You brutes!” Bonnaire objected, which was rich coming from the man who had gotten Porthos injured in the first place. He was standing as far towards the door as he could, Athos noted with contempt, and looked pale at the sight of Porthos’ blood. In contrast his wife hovered near the table, her gaze assessing.

“You only need to hear a man with Porthos’ power scream once before you’ll realize this is the better option,” Aramis responded tartly. “D’Artagnan, help me hold him steady please. And bring that water; there’s no sickness in his blood yet, but we must be quick.”

“We’re in time?” Athos managed to summon the presence of mind to ask. If they were too late because of his hesitance…

“I’m not sure yet,” Aramis said tightly. Athos watched flickers of gold slide over Porthos’ skin and slip inside the wound, as Aramis sent his Sight looking for where to clean and how to stitch. “I…I think so, I...wait….” His eyes widened, suddenly. Athos felt another spark of alarm.

“What is it?”

“I can see…too far. Much too far. I…what am I seeing? What are these red circles?” His eyes were blank, and his fingers had frozen on Porthos’ skin.

“Aramis, come back, we don’t have time for this!” Porthos was still bleeding. Aramis had not lost his tether like this in years. Athos did not know what to do.

“I’m trying...I can’t find my way! There’s some sort of river…a tunnel…it flows but never reaches the sea…”

“What’s going on?” d’Artagnan came around the table, his eyes flicking from Athos to Porthos to Aramis. “Why did he stop?”

“Aramis has sent his Sight too far, he cannot find his way back.” It was this house. He knew they should not have come here, disaster was the only thing it ever brought.

“Too far? Too far where?”

“I don’t know…none of this makes sense…”

“Well, come back! Porthos needs you, Aramis!” d’Artagnan demanded.

Aramis blinked, a bright golden flash in Athos’ magical vision. “Too far _inside._ I know what to…there!” In a moment the thread was back in his fingers and his hands were sure again. “D’Artagnan, stay _right there_. I don’t know what you’re doing, but you’re helping,” he ordered, as he slid the needle into Porthos’ flesh.

“I’m just going to…step out for a moment,” Bonnaire said airily from the doorway, and Athos had to break away to inform their guest how very incorrect he was.

Porthos would recover. Athos felt everything in him collapse at the news; he managed to stave off the fog swiftly moving through his brain until the others were asleep, and then he gave in. He wandered the house like the ghost he felt, baffled at the direction his feet took but helpless to control them. Here was his nursery, that would never again house children; here were his mother’s rooms, so long empty that all smell and color had faded to nothing; here the dining room, that a lifetime ago had been his least favorite room of the house because it forced him to host and socialize.

Dawn, and eventually D’Artagnan, found him in the portrait gallery. Athos was, distantly, grateful that it was him; d’Artagnan’s innocent questions were somehow easier to answer than Aramis’ silence would have been.

When he drifted back to his—comrades, he could not call them brothers right now, not in this house, not with the memory of Thomas’ face so fresh—he found Porthos awake, lucid, and making conversation with the prisoners.

“It’s a glorious land. And all of it, just there for the taking, if you’re man enough.” Maria Bonnaire had a certain fierceness in her manner that was compelling, Athos could see that. But he was wary of fierce women with inspiring words, warier than Porthos at the very least who looked intrigued.

“Labor is cheap. A man can set himself up with a plot of land, workers, every luxury, and a couple of mistresses besides—only joking, my love!” Bonnaire was not in any way joking. Athos was deeply looking forward to delivering him to the King’s justice.

“We’re ready to move,” Athos announced, and immediately thought of those faces in the village, of how he would have to ride back through and see Romi’s bleak eyes. He balked. “Porthos, can you ride?”

“If he must,” Aramis supplied for him, which got him a glare. It wasn’t as though Porthos would have answered honestly in any case.

“Good. I must stay and close up the house, and tend to some things in the village; I’ll catch up with you in Paris.” Aramis’ eyebrows shot up in surprise, but he made no comment. This, Athos decided, as Porthos clearly bit his tongue on a question, was why Aramis was his favorite.

D’Artagnan accosted him as they were leaving the house, and by the way he was watching them out of the corners of his eyes, it was at Aramis’ bidding. Aramis was no longer his favorite, Athos resolved, as he waved away d’Artagnan’s suggestion to stay behind with him. He didn’t need a nursemaid. He certainly didn’t need his apprentice tagging along on this particular errand.

“My men have leave to shoot your husband should he try to escape,” he advised Maria Bonnaire quietly as she stepped into the cart. She sneered at him, but he saw the wideness around the corners of her eyes; she would ensure that they behaved until they reached Paris.

They left. He waited until they were out of sight, then slipped down to the village. He did not know what he was going to say when he found Romi, did not know what of the questions and apologies and recrimations were going to make it out of his mouth, but it turned out to be moot. Romi was dead, blood sliding down his throat and hand and knife in a silent, cold reproach.

Last time Athos had set foot in this place he had been responsible for someone’s death, and now he was again.

He lost control. The white-hot rushing in his head and clenching in his chest took over, and next thing he knew he was two bottles deep and had no interest in slowing. There was no one counting on him, no one around whose judgment or safety he need worry over. He tilted the bottle back, savored the choking burning of the wine as it slid down his throat, and heard a tearing sound. Around him the curtains and hangings on the walls were ripping, little slits and first and then great slashes. His magic, like him, had talent only for destruction. He let it be; control had gotten him nowhere in these last five years but right back where he started, with her gone.

She was gone. She was dead and nothing, _nothing_ was ever going to be all right again.

At some point he must have fallen asleep or unconscious, because the smell of smoke roused him from a sodden, tear-streaked stupor. He was in their bed, ruining the covers with wine and sobs, and something was burning.

He struggled to his feet, but before he reached the door he saw something that stopped him cold in his tracks, froze his feet to the floor and knocked his knees down there with them.

She drifted along the hall, back straight, posture regal, a ghost of breathtaking solidity. She turned to look at him, and along with the reproach there was surprise. Athos could do nothing but stare as she came towards him, drew her hand back, and cracked him such a blow across the face that it knocked him clear across the room.

He gasped, head spinning, eyes tearing. She hit him again, as if his disbelieving thoughts were audible, as if she knew he needed confirmation to really understand that she was solid. Then she stopped and waited, and words pushed up from his stuttering stomach unbidden.

“You died.” The whisper left him barely audible; his throat felt as gutted as the rest of him. “I saw you die.”

“Oh husband mine.” She smiled. He had gotten to see her smile again, with cruelty tugging at the corner of her mouth like rot. “You’ll see anything I want you to see.”

She waved a hand and suddenly the room was as it had been all those years ago; bright and clean and full of the fragrance of flowers.

“Look familiar?”

He could not respond. He could not breathe. He could not think.

“How about this?”

They were outside. The hill. The tree. Her body, hanging, as he had never seen it in life because he had looked away. Coward. Coward. He looked away again, now.

“Don’t do that darling. Do you not appreciate my art?”

He was choking on air too thick to breathe but could not see the cause of it. She came close, bent over his prone form; he felt her breath on his cheek and something cracked inside of him at it. There was a knife at his neck, cold. It was well-formed, his magic told him, a good blade. That was good. That was fitting. All of this was, perhaps, fitting.

“Do it.”

It was a relief. A relief to say it, a relief to close his eyes and tilt his head back. He had clung so hard to life these past five years that his heart felt raw and bloody with it, ripped to shreds by the sound of her voice. He could not breathe now anyways; his lungs were full of smoke he could not see.

“Do it.”

There was a pause. Something trembled between them, and Athos realized it was his death, taking shape in the air. He was ready for it, he had been ready for it since the day she died, and yet…and yet…

“Athos!”

She started. The blade scratched a thin line down his throat and then disappeared.

“Athos!”

D’Artagnan.

Between one breath and the next, she was gone, and he was left reeling, shaking on his knees and choking. “Athos!” he heard again, and then d’Artagnan stumbled into the room. The door banged back against the far wall, and suddenly there was fire all around, licking at the covers on their bed and reaching hungrily for the tip of Athos’ boot.

“Come on, get up, come on,” d’Artagnan urged him, hauling at his shoulders. Athos did not move, his mind struggling to say something, to explain why he needed to stay right here. “Come on!” d’Artagnan said once more, then clearly gave up and began to haul Athos bodily out of the house. Athos stumbled, slid, got his legs under him on the second try. He walked, or a close approximation to it. He left.

“She’s alive,” he gasped to d’Artagnan when they made it outside. “She’s a mage, she’s _alive_.”

“Who is?” d’Artagnan forced something into his mouth and Athos swallowed automatically, then choked. Water tasted too cold, too pure in his burning, rotting mouth.

“My wife.” It all came out then, in gasps and groans as the house burned down behind him, her deceit and Thomas’ murder and what he had done. “That was five years ago,” he concluded.

He bit his tongue before he could reveal what came after. How in the wake of his shame and guilt and pain, he had stared down at his naked sword blade and thought about shoving it into his own chest. How the only thing that had stopped him was the play of light along its edge, unnatural and the first hint of beauty he’d seen since she died. How he had learned that that light was magic, that his skill with the sword had never ben uncanny talent, it had been the Gift. That alone had not salvaged him, not nearly enough at least; there had been a time when he was on the verge of tumbling into a life as merely a drunkard with a sword and magic and no morals whatsoever, but Master Treville had stopped all that. Now with the crest on his shoulder and a sword in his hand Athos wasn’t whole, exactly, but there was a reason for him to be on this earth at least. He’d been learning, these five years; how to be a mage, how to be a Musketeer, how to live in a world without her.

“What am I supposed to do now?” he asked, helpless, and got no reply.

~~~

They made it back to Paris the morning Bonnaire was to face justice. The world around Athos felt fragile, as though if he moved too suddenly or turned his head too sharply, everything might shatter. Things did shatter, once; they stopped briefly at an inn to water the horses and he remembered her face as she stood over him, alive, _alive_. Before he could catch it his magic reached out and smashed the mirror behind the bar. Everyone in the room jumped, and Athos herded d’Artagnan out quickly, leaving enough of a tip to cover the repair costs.

D’Artagnan was reassuringly solid, however, and Athos’ instinct to do a sweep of the surrounding area was proven sound when a would-be assassin turned up aiming for Bonnaire as he entered the palace. The man was obliging with information with a pistol to his head, at which point they finally learned what Bonnaire had done to have so many people out for his blood.

“ _Can_ he set up colonies? He’s just a merchant,” d’Artagnan asked as he and Athos released the Spanish agent back onto his ship.

“Not without leave of the king, and not while it violates our treaty with Spain.” Bonnaire was a fool. But he was an ambitious fool, and Athos had seen enough of those in service to the king. Bonnaire was meeting with the Cardinal at that moment to receive his judgment, and Athos did not trust that combination. “We’ll join Aramis and Porthos at the palace,” he decided, and urged d’Artagnan into a jog.

They found Porthos and Aramis waiting outside of the Cardinal’s audience chamber.

“Ah, you made it! He’ll be out any moment,” Aramis greeted them cheerfully.

“And on his way to the Bastille, most likely.” Porthos seemed a little regretful about Bonnaire’s probable fate.

“Don’t feel sorry for the blowhard, he tried to escape twice on the way here.” Aramis made a face.

“Once by having loudly amorous relations with his lady in the cart and assuming we’d be too bashful to keep an ear out,” Porthos supplied, grinning.

“Unimaginative. He tried that once already.” Athos shook his head, grateful for their banter, grateful for the normality of it all. “What’s this?” There was a carrying case leaning against the wall in the alcove behind Aramis. Athos pulled it out and screwed the top to reveal a rolled-up sheaf of papers.

“Huh, that’s Bonnaire’s plans for his next voyage. Must’ve left them out here.” Porthos took the case and shook the papers into his hands, unrolling the topmost and looking it over.

“Well that can’t have helped his chances with the Cardinal,” Aramis laughed. His amusement stopped sharply, however, when he saw Porthos’ face. Athos had, just the night before, been gutted by something too powerfully painful to be borne, and now he recognized the same look. “What? What is it?”

“Ah, gentlemen, it’s a wonderful day to be—” Bonnaire sailed out of the office and stopped short. “I can explain,” he said, and then Porthos shoved the papers into Aramis’ arms and lunged at him.

He struck Bonnaire so hard across the face that the man tumbled into the wall opposite. Before he was finished sliding to the floor Porthos had hold of him by his shoulders and was spinning him around for another strike. Athos and d’Artagnan, caught by surprise, only managed to grab Porthos’ arms once he’d gotten several more punches in, and even then he struggled, kicking at Bonnaire on the ground.

“Porthos, enough!” Athos bellowed, stunned. “What are you doing? What is this?” He and d’Artagnan dragged Porthos several feet down the hallway away from the Cardinal’s chambers, though he struggled all the while. Belatedly, Athos remembered his injury, but not soon enough; there was a ripping noise, a bellow of pain, and a hiss from Aramis.

“There goes my needlework.”

“Look. Look at that.” Porthos raised a trembling finger to point at the papers Aramis held. Aramis unrolled them so they all could see, and sucked in a sharp breath.

It was a ship, drawn from the view of a bird flying above, but the decks were packed not with the shapes of crates or circles but with human outlines. Barely a few inches between each stark form, and Athos could see in his mind’s eye how it would look in life, human bodies shackled together like livestock.

“It’s a slave ship.” Porthos’ voice broke sickly.

“The drawings make it looks far worse than it is!” Bonnaire struggled to his fee, and made the mistake of trying to approach, reaching for his papers. Porthos growled and almost threw Athos and d’Artagnan off; Aramis had to help them drag him back away.

“Look at that!” Porthos gestured wildly, heedless of the red stain spreading over his shoulder. “Look at that one! People, packed on the deck like fish in the market. ‘Labor is cheap there’? It isn’t cheap labor, it’s stolen labor, stolen _lives_!”

The last work cracked like thunder, and they all flinched.

“I am not a prejudiced man!” Bonnaire’s debonair appearance was disheveled from Porthos’ earlier blows, and his face shone with sweat as he pointed Porthos, looking for all the world as though he believed himself unfairly attacked. “This was business! Strictly business.”

“The business of misery, and suffering.”

“The business of the Cardinal!”

“What.” The word sounded punched out of Porthos, full of hollow, disbelieving air. Bonnaire’s smug preen made Athos’ magic itch inside his sword, seeking a target.

“He’s agreed to invest. We’re forming a joint venture together.”

“How can he…” d’Artagnan began. Athos grit his teeth and said it.

“Slavery is cruel and disgusting. But it is not illegal.”

He let Porthos shake him off, shove him away, and met his eyes squarely because he owed it to him. Porthos looked back, his gaze full and agonied.

“That’s so, isn’t it.”

He breathed, for a moment, in and out, then spoke.

“I. I heard stories about those ships as a child. Know why they’re shackled? To stop them jumping overboard. Because that’s better than watching your friends, your family, your children, die. Of starvation, and sickness, and hopelessness.”

It hurt, not physically but in a deep, unreachable way. Vaguely Athos saw magic in the air, but it barely felt like magic, it just felt like pain, everywhere, catching at his throat. Aramis was crying; so was Bonnaire. Athos’ own eyes burned, and d’Artagnan’s were bright, his mouth trembling.

“You know what happens to people on those ships. You know what happens to them on the auction block, and in the fields, and in the homes of the people who have convinced themselves that this is normal, that this is how humans behave to each other. _You know what happens to them_.”

Under Porthos’ voice others were sounding now, impossibly many, women and men, some not even in French, but all striking like knives. Athos wanted to cover his ears against the sound but he stopped before he could complete the motion; the words tore at him, but so did the knowledge that he owed this to Porthos, that he was supposed to listen. Bonnaire did cover his ears; it didn’t seem to make a difference. The sound built, and built.

“Men are born free. They are born free and then _you_ cage them and shackle them and sell them. They are not commodities. They are not _for you_. Their lives are not less, their pain is not of a different quality. You don’t understand yet, but you will. _You will understand_.”

The command ripped through the air like a gale wind. Athos rocked backwards at the force of it, saw d’Artagnan stumble to keep his footing and Aramis gasp. The power hit Bonnaire and threw him back against the wall again, harder than Porthos’ first punch; his head bounced sharply against the stonework and he slumped, unconscious.

Athos looked to Porthos. He was pale and sweating, swaying on his feet, the red stain still spreading along his shoulder.

“You’ve torn my stiches,” was all Aramis could apparently think of to say.

“Worth it. Worth whatever happens,” Pothos mumbled, and Athos realized with a chill what Porthos clearly already knew: he had attacked an agent of the King. Assaulted a man in the employ of the Cardinal, with magic _, right outside the Cardinal’s chambers_.

“Get him out of here. All of us, we must go, now,” he ordered. He watched Aramis and d’Artagnan understand; d’Artagnan rushed to haul Bonnaire onto his shoulders and Aramis guided Porthos towards the door, half-running, half-stumbling.

“The papers!” he hissed at Athos, and Athos doubled back to grab them.

“Maria—his wife! Where is she?” d’Artagnan realized.

“Still in with the Cardinal.”

“No, don’t wait, she’ll look for him at the tavern, not with us,” Athos instructed, and shoved them out the door.

By silent agreement they all made for one of the discrete locations around the city where a Musketeer might undertake work of a sensitive nature unimpeded by needless oversight. By the time they were inside and the windows barred, Porthos was fading in and out of consciousness and Bonnaire had begun to toss his head restlessly in his sleep. About a quarter of an hour into Aramis re-sewing Porthos’ shoulder, Bonnaire began to scream.

“What did Porthos do to him?” d’Artagnan asked quietly.

Athos exchanged a silent look with Aramis but did not reply.

Porthos was well asleep by the time Bonnaire woke with a cry and curled himself into the corner, pouring sweat.

“Make them stop!” he demanded. “You can’t do this to me, the Cardinal—”

“Has not noticed you are gone.” Athos cut him off because he could make tedious threats.

“My wife, my—”

“She’ll not find you here monsieur. Doubtless she is combing the taverns as we speak, looking for you in the arms of another woman.”

“No, she, I’m…I’m supposed to fetch her in three months’ time…”

Athos glanced at Aramis, wondering what he made of that, and got a baffled look in return.

“Why in three month’s time?” he demanded, trying to catch Bonnaire’s gaze. The man’s eyes kept flitting around the room, restless and hunted.

“The Cardinal has need of her.” Well, that was ominous.

“Why?”

“Her abilities. Surely you noticed? She enhances the magic of others.”

There was a pause, broken only by the sound of Porthos’ soft, sleeping breaths.

“You idiot.” D’Artagnan took a step towards Bonnaire in frustrated fury. “Four mages traveled with this woman for days and you never warned us? No, wait, of course you didn’t warn us, you probably thought you could use it to escape somehow.”

“She almost killed Porthos when she interfered with my Sight,” Aramis said, in mingled anger and realization.

“What does the Cardinal want with her?” Athos demanded.

“Some ritual, I didn’t bother with the details.”

“So you traded her for your joint venture? Even your wife is a commodity to you?” Athos’s throat felt thick with disgust, and it only deepened when Bonnaire flinched at the word ‘commodity’.

“She agreed, she agreed! I’m sorry, all right? Make him take back what he did.” He pointed at Porthos, finger shaking. “I don’t want to see that every time I sleep!”

“Too bad.” Getting to finally punch Bonnaire to shut him up was deeply satisfying to Athos, though the realization that it was a temporary solution at best was less so.

“What do we do with him?” Aramis asked the obvious question as Bonnaire slumped back into unconsciousness. “We can’t let him loose, he’ll go directly to the Cardinal and Porthos will be done for.”

“I wish that Spanish agent had captured him after all,” d’Artagnan grumbled, and Athos blinked.

“You know, I think that’s exactly what happened.”

It was treason of the highest order, delivering Bonnaire bound and gagged to the Spanish vessel with a note describing his “sudden, inexplicable illness.” But the look on Porthos’ face when he woke and heard that Bonnaire was headed for a Spanish jail and a lifetime of living under Porthos’ spell told Athos they’d done the right thing.

Porthos stepped lightly around the three of them for a week or so after the incident. Athos understood why: Porthos had seen plenty of men keep their distance after witnessing the extent of his magic, and even with Athos and Aramis he tended to confine himself to affecting the physical world around him, wary that the ability to reach into a man’s heart or mind might be less well-received. After a week of Aramis nagging him to go light on his shoulder, Athos demanding assistance writing up a fabricated report of their misadventure, and d’Artagnan watching him with curiosity but no increased fear or deference, he relaxed.

The only loose end was Maria Bonnaire. No one had seen her since she entered the palace, but that meant little; Master Treville had long suspected that the Cardinal had agents who escaped all notice. It seemed clear that the ritual mentioned was the same one Vadim has seen a drawing of, but they had no further leads; all Athos could do was report a heavily edited version of events to Master Treville and await further orders.

~~~

The next they heard of the ritual was at Ninon de Larroque’s trial. Countess de Larroque was a fascinating figure, or so Aramis claimed: her passion was the study of the new discipline called philosophical magic, the notion that one could teach Church magic (spells, words of power, rituals and the like) without the teachings of God. Athos had not much interest in it one way or another, it being largely irrelevant to his own practice of magic and that of most ambient mages. But Aramis seemed enthusiastic, and certainly in their travels they all had seen mages of other faiths practice their spells in Arabic or Hebrew or Chinese to great effect.

But the notion that God and the Church need not be integral to the practice of magic was undeniably heretical. Holding a trial over it seemed petty, but then again, the Cardinal was a great believer in petty revenge.

At least it looked as though Athos would not have to watch a women sentenced to death for no real reason: as the trial unfolded it became clear the Cardinal had no proof that the philosophical magic she was teaching actually ran counter to the teachings of the Church.

“I would never come between anyone and their faith,” the Countess said innocently, and Athos derived great pleasure from watching the Cardinal grind his teeth. “I seek to help others understand the world around us and the secrets of magic, that is all.”

“Those secrets are for God, not men, to comprehend,” the Cardinal snapped.

“Yes, it seems there are many things that men do not comprehend.”

“Oh, I like her,” Aramis muttered, delighted by the insult.

“You seek to engage with things beyond your reach and your station.”

Comtesse de Larroque laughed at that, though Athos didn’t see what was amusing. “Ah, irony! Cardinal, we both know that reaching for things beyond your power is your domain.”

Something about the steadiness of her gaze and the sudden stillness of the Cardinal caught Athos’ attention. “Hm,” Aramis said next to him.

“Yeah,” Porthos agreed, thoughtful. “She’s got something on him.”

“And he’s not happy about it,” Aramis added. The Cardinal was leaning forward, hands clasped white-knuckled on the table.

“We shall see,” he bit out, and motioned the first of the witnesses forward.

“That’s Fleur, Constance’s cousin,” d’Artagnan whispered as a young girl took the stand. She bore up well under the questions, but the Cardinal was well-practiced.

“So you say that she encouraged you to come to her, not to your priest, if you had questions about the workings of magic?”

“Well, no, only if there was something I didn’t understand,” she tried to amend, but was dismissed without the chance to clarify.

“Weak attempts to twist her words do not constitute a case,” the Comtesse pointed out calmly.

“No, but they do provide excellent corroboration.” The Cardinal’s drawl always became particularly regal when he thought he’d won. Athos noted that he exchanged a satisfied glance with the man seated beside him at the judges’ table.

“Who is that?” he muttered to Aramis.

“Father Luca Sistini. Another archmage, beloved of the Pope.”

Athos frowned as the Cardinal called the next witness. Another archmage meant there were only three more needed until the ritual could be completed, fewer if Maria Bonnaire was involved, and they still did not know its purpose.

Then she appeared, and all thoughts of some far-off ritual flew from his mind.

“Madame de la Chappelle, please tell us of your experiences with the Comtesse’s “teachings.””

“Athos?” Athos did not know what his face was doing to put that questioning tone in d’Artagnan’s voice, but he could not concentrate to amend it. She was standing there, in court, not a memory or a ghost or a vengeful apparition but a human woman. He’d thought he might have imagined it, afterwards, might have burned down the house himself in his drunken hallucinations.

“I have some small skill in magic, taught by the nuns as is proper for a gentlewoman,” she began, her head down, her voice demure. “She promised she would teach me more, not just how to do spells, but how my magic worked and why.”

Slowly his stupor began to clear. She was here and it could not bode anything but ill. She was here and using another false name and no one _knew_ , no one—

“And what is your Gift, madame?”

“I can bring past events to the present, and show them to others.”

“Liar!” The word burst from him violently. He choked on his fury, pushed his way through the crowd towards her. “She is a liar! She is an illusionist, and that is not her name!”

He knew he must say more, that there was more to explain to make them understand, but he could not find the words. All he could do was shout, and fight to get to her, and then find himself barred from the courtroom with alacrity.

“Athos, what’s going on? Who was that woman? Are you all right?”

His rage was cooling now, and Athos realized he’d behaved a fool. He waved d’Artagnan’s questions away, suddenly deeply weary.

“Go back inside. Tell me what occurs.” D’Artagnan obeyed. Athos learned that after he was removed she proceeded to weave an image in the air, ostensibly of one of the Comtesse’s teaching sessions, where she urged her pupils to cast off the strictures and beliefs of the Church. Not a particularly subtle lie, but effective.

And for naught, because the Queen then intervened. The Comtesse was spared the death penalty, but returned to her cell; there was no way to speak to her and find out what she knew that made the Cardinal so intent to silence her.

“Fleur Bodan.” Porthos snapped his fingers. “The girl who testified. We can speak to her, surely, maybe she knows something.”

They found Fleur with Constance Bonaceuix. Neither seemed surprised to see them, but they did not seem pleased either. Athos supposed that after watching a woman such as Comtesse de Larroque face such a mockery of a trial, the faces of men in authority would not be the most welcome to them.

“She said to give you this if you came looking,” Fleur said, handing over a sealed letter. The Comtesse’s hand was hurried and full of sharp spikes, the writing of someone more interested in committing thoughts to paper than in legibility or aesthetics. He deciphered it, eyebrows raising as he read.

> To whom it may concern,
> 
> Let this be considered my sworn testimony that on May the 17 in the year of our Lord 1630, the Cardinal de Richelieu inquired with me about volumes in my collection regarding the use of ritual magics. He prevailed upon me for my translation of the _Enchiridion magis Christiani_ , and upon its return I noted that the pages regarding the summoning of beings of power were well-creased. When I confronted him with my suspicion that he was preparing a summoning ritual of some great magnitude, he became quite irate, calling me a blasphemer and a witch. It is now August the 24, and I have marked an increase of interference with my classes. I suspect that my library and chambers have been searched without my knowledge or consent. If this letter finds my voice stifled by the machinations of greedy, arrogant men of power, please deliver the enclosed missive directly to Cardinal de Richelieu.
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Ninon de Larroque

There was indeed a second letter inside, sealed as well. Athos did not open it, simply handed the first letter over to Aramis and Porthos and nodded to Fleur Bodan.

“Thank you for your assistance, miss.”

“I did it for Ninon,” she informed him, eyes darting to the side afterwards as if she might regret the boldness.

“I understand.”

They delivered the letter to the Cardinal, and what it had contained became clear when the news circulated that the Comtesse de Larroque had donated all of her lands and fortune to the treasury and was retiring to the countryside, to what end the gossips knew not.

“She bought her freedom with her wealth,” d’Artagnan realized. He nodded, seeming impressed. “Well played.”

“She bought her life, and she should never have had to.” Aramis was not as happy with the outcome.

“More importantly, what the hell is the Cardinal going to summon?” Porthos asked. “And by the way, Athos, who was that woman and how did you know she was lying?”

Athos dodged that question by the simple expediency of not answering, and with a shared look Porthos and Aramis dropped the matter. Athos was grateful, because the thought of being asked any more questions about her made him feel sick and cold. That she truly was alive, he’d had some time to get used to. But that she was here, in Paris, working with the Cardinal in the service of some kind of ominous ritual? That he did not know how to even begin to contemplate.

~~~

Athos focused on training d’Artagnan, because that at least he somewhat understood. The boy’s hold on his power grew daily, that was plain for anyone to see when they sparred; his magic kept close to his body now, and he and it moved as one when they struck or parried. Athos felt when magic sped up d’Artagnan’s reflexes, or added an extra punch behind his strikes, and allowed his own power to creep out in answer. If pressed, he might even admit that it was enjoyable to spar with someone whose abilities so mirrored his own that they presented a real challenge.

Something was off, however. In Athos’ experience, a power once acknowledged would grow not only in finesse but in magnitude. It would grasp for new applications, new challenges, until it reached its limits. D’Artagnan’s did not. His hold over it wavered and broke when Athos goaded him, but his power never tested the limits on its own. Athos did not have much experience with apprentices, but that did not strike him as normal.

He pushed. He was not sure it was the right thing to do, but it was the only thing he could think of. Better to bruise d’Artagnan’s feelings now than court disaster later on with an unexpected development. To his credit, d’Artagnan took Athos’ provocations with a clenched jaw but never a turned back; he finished every fight, no matter what Athos threw at him.

That is, until Labarge was brought to trial. A battle mage whose specialty was increasing his own strength and resistance and sapping the strength of others, Labarge had been granted a regional intendant position as reward for service and promptly abused it. D’Artagnan descended from Master Treville’s office one morning looking pale and ill, and told them the news: his farm had been one of the ones destroyed by Labarge. He had lost friends, his family’s land, and his only income. Athos knew something of that level of loss, if not the comfort of having an outside villain to blame.

D’Artagnan’s power crackled along his shoulders that day, refusing to settle. They meditated for twice the usual amount of time that afternoon, but it did little to ease the tension in the air around him. Athos, intimately acquainted with the dangers of a hot head, kept an eye out for trouble and found it: d’Artagnan had gone to the prison to confront Labarge, and he was going to get himself killed.

Athos got there just in time, and he only found the cell because of the flashes of magic, d’Artagnan’s silver and Labarge’s deep, bloody red, shining through the door. D’Artagnan had lost his sword, and the mass of silver fire at his heart was flaring and spitting with rage. Labarge’s magic was like a toxic mist in the air around him; d’Artagnan was choking, on it and on the man’s stranglehold.

D’Artagnan was shaken for days after his encounter with Labarge in the jail cell. His magic sunk so low inside of him that it could not be reached even when sparring with Athos. When Master Treville announced the contest to decide who would be the champion of the Musketeers to stand against a Red Mage in a magic duel, Athos was convinced he did so to try to spark d’Artagnan’s spirit. He was deeply grateful, especially as he saw d’Artagnan’s mood improve dramatically.

Aramis swept the shooting competition cheerfully. No one could lay a hand on Porthos wrestling. To everyone’s surprise Valois, a newer recruit who used wind magic, came close to outing Porthos as champion of unarmed magic (where participants were placed in separate circles across the arena from one another and must force the other to step out of his circle) but stumbled in the end when Porthos commanded the sand under his feet to shift. And Athos watched with undeniable pride as d’Artagnan revealed himself the undeniable victor at swordplay, magical and non-magical alike.

“Why didn’t you compete?” d’Artagnan asked Athos afterwards.

“I’ve dueled twice this year already, I’ve no desire to encourage fools to take up more of my time with challenges,” Athos drawled. Aramis gave him a knowing look, but the mild prevarication satisfied d’Artagnan and that was all that mattered.

All the combined effort going into sponsoring their apprentice in this challenge came crashing down when Treville claimed the honor for himself. Athos was bewildered and furious; had his Master somehow at the last minute had a crisis of arrogance, a refusal to step aside and let the next generation shine? D’Artagnan was ready, he might not be able to find his core of power yet but his control was flawless and his swordwork superb. He would do them proud. Did Master Treville have so little faith in their teaching, or so little respect for the four of them, that he would put his own glory above all that?

Athos was harsh with his Master. Not the harshest he had ever been, certainly, considering some of the things he had said when Treville was forcing him sober. But harsh.

Then Labarge stepped into the ring and he realized the choice his Master had actually made, and the risk he was taking. Master Treville was an excellent swordsman and mage, but Labarge was a monster.

They watched Labarge break the rules of engagement, watched his red mist magic eating at Master Treville like a sickness. Aramis was stock still next to Athos, humming with tension, and that was how he knew the duel was going to end badly. And indeed, it was only because the three of them were poised to intervene that it did not end with murder.

“Your man broke the rules, Cardinal,” the King declared, and Athos thought very very hard about driving the point of his sword through Labarge’s throat, and then stepped aside and let d’Artagnan forward.

“Tell me I haven’t sent our apprentice to his death,” he asked Aramis, keeping his tone light as if it was a joke.

“You haven’t.” Aramis was watching d’Artagnan with that same expression he’d had weeks ago, when a stranger stormed into the garrison demanding Athos of the King’s Musketeers face him in a duel. His brow was furrowed, eyes intent, and the corner of his mouth lifted in the start of a smile, anticipatory.

“Aramis?”

“Shush, Porthos, just watch. I have a feeling we’ll want to be paying attention to this.”

D’Artagnan stepped into the ring. His spine was straight, his posture comfortable with practice and purpose. At his heart his magic shone like a lantern; Athos wondered how many other people in the arena could see it.

“I remember you. The little swordmage. I’m gonna enjoy this.”

‘Don’t rise to it’, Athos willed d’Artagnan, and he didn’t, just took his stance and attacked.

“You know, I think I do remember your farm. It went up like a light.” They traded blows, the ringing of steel in the air.

“I torched the fields first. When I got to the main house there was this old man, leaning on his cane. ‘Don’t do this, I beg of you!’” Labarge cackled and struck forward with a series of heavy, chopping hits. D’Artagnan could deflect attacks like that from Athos with no difficulty, but Athos could see Labarge’s power in the air again. The longer d’Artagnan spent in that red cloud, the more his strength diverged from his opponent’s. Instead of blocking the strikes with strength that would quickly wane, d’Artaganan side-stepped. Good. “I killed him on the doorstep. Was that your father?”

“His name was Gerard. He had three grandchildren.” Athos’ heart ached once, sharply. He could not tell if it was with sympathetic grief for the tone in d’Artagnan’s voice, or with pride for how he timed his next strike. It was perfect, shearing through Labarge’s guard and scoring a long and beautiful hit along his shoulder. Athos allowed himself a moment to breathe…then watched with horror as Labarge laughed and riposted immediately, almost knocking d’Artagnan’s sword out of his hand.

“Was that supposed to hurt me? That little prick of yours isn’t going to do it.” His arm underneath his torn shirt was unblemished, and Athos realized that between Treville and d’Artagnan the duel had gone on too long; Labarge had absorbed too much strength. Only another battlemage would possibly be able to pierce his skin now.

“We have to step in,” he hissed to Aramis, his hand on the pommel of his sword.

“Wait.” Aramis’ eyes hadn’t left d’Artagnan, and suddenly that waiting half-smile bloomed into a grin. “Here we go.”

Labarge charged, a huge mountain of force bearing down upon d’Artagnan’s slim, young form. Athos clenched his fists. Labarge’s sword swung down, and sliced d’Artagnan from shoulder to hip. Porthos cried out, and Athos felt his own breath stop, but…something was off.

There was no blood, not on the sword, not on the shirt; Athos knew something of this kind of killing blow, enough to expect the spray of red in the air, but there was none of it. Just d’Artagnan’s magic, shining bright and…rising.

“What the hell is this,” Labarge grunted. He took a step back, and the air throbbed with red as he brought his own power to bear—Athos could see the way it tugged at d’Artagnan, questing for his strength. And then there was silver in the air, rising off d’Artagnan like mist from the trees.

“That’s not his magic,” Porthos muttered, confused.

“Bet you a livre it is,” Aramis responded, sounding delighted. He was watching, fascinated, as that odd silver power flowed up and out, looking for all the world as if a perfect copy of Labarge’s magic had appeared in the arena.

“Play as many tricks as you like, I’ll gut you all the same,” Labarge snarled, and charged again.

“En guarde,” was d’Artagnan’s response as he brought his sword up and ran Labarge straight through his chest.

There was utter silence in the arena. D’Artagnan stood for a moment, panting, then backed away from the corpse.

Athos had no idea what he had just seen, but he knew what his apprentice deserved right now, and he was the first one into the arena to clap d’Artagnan on the back, Porthos and Aramis right behind him.

“Bravo d’Artagnan. I hereby declare the Musketeers Regiment the winners,” the King proclaimed. Athos bowed quickly as His Majesty descended into the arena, and remembered to kick Porthos on the way down—the man never realized he ought to bow in proper time, one day he was going to end up in real trouble because of it.

“You did some sort of magic trick at the end there?” the King inquired of d’Artagnan. Athos was certain everyone in the stadium had some form of the same question—few could see magic the way he, Porthos and Aramis could, but all of them had seen the dramatic turnaround of the fight. “It was impressive,” the King continued without waiting for a response. “But I was more impressed with how you came to the aid of your Master. I admire loyalty, more than magic or swordplay.

“You are an apprentice?”

“Yes your Majesty. My Masters.” D’Artagnan indicated the three of them with a wave of his hand.

“Well then, consider this notice that upon your acquiring Journeyman status, I intend you commission you into my Musketeers Regiment. Until then, d’Artagnan.” D’Artagnan almost stumbled in his bow as the King left, clearly stunned.

“What…what just…” he asked blankly as he straightened up again, and Aramis grinned and dragged him into an embrace.

“You found the core of your magic, manifested your true power, avenged your farm, and acquired a commission from the King,” he informed him.

“Not bad for a day’s work!” Porthos grabbed d’Artagnan next, beaming.

“Well done.” Athos did not have it within him to rise to the levels of demonstrativeness that they did, but he hoped his smile conveyed enough.

“Thank you. Thank you so much.” D’Artagnan was crying, unashamedly.

“Not a swordmage after all.” Master Treville looked somewhat worse for the wear, his arm bound tightly to his body, but he shook d’Artagnan’s hand solidly.

“No sir. Not a swordmage. I think the word might be copy mage,” d’Artagnan replied, wondering.

“Oh, use _empathie_ , it has so much more mystique,” Aramis chided, and d’Artagnan managed a watery laugh.

~~~

They were back at the garrison, still talking over the fight, when d’Artagnan exclaimed, “I can’t wait to tell—oh. Oh, _no_.”

“What’s the matter?” Aramis asked, for d’Artagnan suddenly looked oddly distraught. D’Artagnan shook his head, lips pressed tightly together, and when they looked at him questioningly he drew the three of them into a side alcove of the garrison and motioned them to lean in.

“I need to confess something,” he whispered, eyes darting behind them as if they might be overheard in the empty yard. Aramis’ eyebrows shot up, and when Porthos looked ready to make a joke to break the sudden tension, he gestured him silent instead.

“Go on. We’re listening.”

“I’ve been…I’ve been training Constance.”

“Constance? Constance Bonaceuix?” d’Artganan flushed. Athos hissed an annoyed breath between his teeth. God grant him one comrade who could refrain from seducing married women. Just one, was that too much to ask?

“Training?”

“In…in magic. Fencing magic.” Athos felt his mouth drop open. Porthos and Aramis shot each other wide-eyed looks of shock.

“She has the Gift?” Aramis asked.

“She does. She asked me not to tell anyone.”

“My God. Does anyone else know?”

“Her family. They hid it when they made the match.”

Because they would have been hard pressed to find someone to marry a woman with a fencing Gift. It was probably illegal, but Athos wasn’t sure; he didn’t think the lawmakers had ever considered that a woman with a Gift for the fighting arts might be possible. This did, he realized, explain why she had seemed so shaken when they showed up at her door looking for an ambient fencing mage.

D’Artagnan was watching them all, his jaw set stubbornly. That was his ‘I don’t intend to apologize’ face, which Aramis and Porthos were surveying with fond familiarity.

“She asked me to train her and I did, I showed her everything you taught me. But if I’m not a fencing mage, she needs someone who is.”

As a one, the three of them looked to Athos. He sighed.

“Let us go inquire.”

Madame Bonaceiux greeted d’Artagnan at the door with such shining eyes that Athos felt foolish for not noticing before. On the other hand, matters of the heart were, extremely rightly, not his domain. He glanced at Aramis: no surprise on his face, he’d known.

“You won?” Constance asked, halfway between brisk and giddy as she led them into the house.

“I did. But not…not the way you’d think.”

“You didn’t cheat.” The certainty in her voice was heartening, at least. “Did he? Wouldn’t be surprised.”

“No. Well, yes, but…I used magic.”

“Which was permitted,” Athos cut in, before the alarm in her eyes could grow. “However, d’Artagnan’s magic, it’s not what we thought.”

“d’Artagnan uses magic by emulating the power of those around him. He’s not a swordmage, he’s a mimic,” Porthos said.

“And, in the course of this discovery, we learned something about you.” Aramis somehow managed to convey the rest of the news with his eyes alone; Constance stood up from her chair so quickly it clattered to the floor.

“How could you!” she hissed at d’Artagnan.

“Don’t be angry with d’Artagnan, he told us so that we could help.”

“That wasn’t his to tell!”

“Madame.” Athos managed to catch her gaze and held it, making sure his voice was steady and serious. “We will not betray your confidence. On our honor, we swear, no one will hear of your magic from us.”

His comrades all nodded. Constance looked pale and shocked still, but she nodded slowly as well.

“I know it’s…wrong, to hide it. But it’s wrong anyways, isn’t it? Unnatural, my mother said.”

“Would you show us? You hide it well, I can see no hint of it in you even now. But I’d wager…” Aramis slid his musket out of his belt. Athos’ eyebrows shot up in surprise—Aramis was not in the habit of lending out his gun, to say the least. “If you take this…”

Constance bit her lip, but she held out her hand for the gun. Someone—d’Artagnan—had taught her the proper stance: she straightened, arm out, shoulder loose, with the barrel pointed carefully at the wall. Athos still saw nothing, but Aramis sucked in a breath around a grin.

“Do you see it? Really?” Constance didn’t seem certain whether to be afraid or excited about the question.

“It’s there. And they’ll see it too, in just a moment; here.” Aramis handed over his sword next. What an odd tableau in the kitchen, Aramis removing his weapons one-by-one and carefully passing them over to a merchant’s wife, his fingers sure as if he knew they were in good hands. “Porthos, if you please.”

Athos should not have been shocked that Porthos drew his sword and squared off without a moment’s hesitation, but he was. Constance was a _married woman_ , she was a married woman standing in her kitchen, surely that warranted at least a moment’s hesitation before engaging her in swordplay? But apparently not, because Porthos grinned, bowed as correctly as if he stood in the dueling arena, and raised his guard.

“Go on,” he said, when Constance hesitated, her eyes wide. “Come on, right here—“ he opened his arms out, his normal pose of provocation, and she struck.

Constance was swift, faster than d’Artagnan had been at the start. Porthos got his guard up just in time, shocked, and she knocked away his riposte with a quick, smooth movement that slid naturally into another attack. Athos could see d’Artagnan’s style in her, his lunges that pushed to the point of over-extension, but she was more fluid, more likely to turn an attack into a parry and back again. And there was the magic: copper flowed along her arm like water, ebbed and crested with her movements like the tides. She was good, very good.

Athos exchanged a glance with Aramis. He nodded at d’Artagnan, who was watching Constance with stars in his eyes. Besotted. Well, with the way she fenced, Athos could see why.

“What in God’s name is this?”

Constance and Porthos froze. Jacques Bonaceiux was standing frozen in the doorway, staring; his eyes traveled from them to Constance to the swords and back. Aramis stepped forward, opened his mouth to try to find some kind of explanation—what he would have come up with, Athos wasn’t sure but was looking forward to finding out—but Monsieur Bonaceiux raised a trembling finger at him before he could get a word out.

“You. All of you. What have you done to my wife.”

“Nothing.” Constance placed Aramis’ sword gently on the table, so careful and regretful with it. “I just wanted to try it for a moment, and they indulged me. I know it was wrong. I won’t do it again.”

“That’s not—” Athos put a hand on d’Artagnan’s arm to stop him. They had sworn no one would learn of Constance’s power from them, and this was her choice.

“Rubbish. They ensorcelled you, it’s plain to see! How dare you! In my own home!”

“Jacques—”

He was squinting around at them now, eyes narrowed meanly, and clearly swiftly losing his temper. “Get out! All of you! You are never to come near me or my wife again! Especially you!” D’Artagnan clenched his jaw at the way Monsieur Bonaceiux pointed at him, but made no reply.

“What? D’Artagnan is our lodger! We need his rent!” Constance was usually able to persuade her husband to follow his more rational instincts, Athos was certain, but right now her equilibrium was shattered; she kept glancing from him to the sword on the table, and trying to tuck her hair back into its plait. “You can’t do this, it’s not—I—”

Monsieur Bonaceuix took a step toward Constance, and Athos watched the other three men in the room resolve simultaneously that if he laid a hand on her, it would be the last thing he ever did. He could not fault them; his own legs were tensed, ready to step forward. But Monsieur Bonaceiux did not, merely stepped close to order, voice fast and harsh, “You will never speak to any of these men again, I command it. If you do, if I see them near this house or learn that you have seen them, I will have them arrested.”

“Try it,” d’Artagnan snapped.

“And I’ll have _you_ arrested as well, for using weapons. My God, Constance, what kind of woman picks up a sword?”

That silenced d’Artagnan, and the rest of them as well, though Aramis’ jaw was clenched so tightly Athos fancied he could hear it creak. But what could they say? Her use of weapons was indeed illegal. Monsieur Bonaceiux was well within his rights to determine who could and could not speak with his wife. They had behaved improperly, and now Constance was paying the price.

“You’re…right. I’m sorry to have embarrassed you with my conduct. It won’t happen again.” It was wrong, Athos reflected resignedly, to hear that tone in Constance’s voice. Not after they had just seen her so alive, gleaming with power and motion. “Please leave, Monsieurs. You’re not welcome in our home.”

“Constance.” D’Artagnan’s voice cracked.

“You as well. Find lodgings elsewhere,” she said, head down, and skirted around them out of the kitchen like a ghost.

“Constance!”

“Don’t address my wife so familiarly, Musketeer, you’re no longer a part of this household.” Within ten minutes they, d’Artagnan, and his belongings were firmly on the other side of the locked front door.

“That…did not go well,” Aramis observed archly, casting a glance back at the Bonaceuix household.

“He can’t do this! Surely he can’t do this?” d’Artagnan looked moments away from trying to kick the door back down.

“He can, but give it a few days. Angry husbands, best to let them cool down, they lose interest fast enough,” Aramis soothed, with expertise borne of experience.

“What am I supposed to do in the meantime?” A dramatic wave of d’Artagnan’s hand encompassed his current lack of lover and lodgings succinctly.

“Train,” Porthos supplied cheerfully, clapping him on the shoulder. “Come on, I’ve lodgings in the garrison. You’re to be commissioned, that merits a room.”

~~~

D’Artagnan’s lessons were greatly amended after that. Swordplay was discontinued, to Athos’ disappointment, now that they knew his sword magic was only mimicking Athos’ power. Meditation increased, which d’Artagnan grumbled about until the first time he accessed the true core of his power; after that he was content to spend an hour a day in exploring that bright knot at the center of him, encouraging it out into the air around him and then learning to draw it back down into his heart again.

The rest of the time they devoted to trying to figure out what might activate his ability to copy another mage. It was not, they found on the first day, a matter of concentration: thinking very hard about copying Aramis did not give d’Artagnan Sight. Nor was it whoever was nearest: when Athos retreated to the balcony, d’Artagnan was still able to mimic his swordwork.

The breakthrough came when Aramis narrowed his eyes at d’Artagnan, tapped the brim of his hat contemplatively, and then announced,

“I have an idea. Porthos, leave us for a moment, if you please.”

“I see how it is.” Porthos scowled in mock-offense and headed for the door, knocking his shoulder into Aramis’ on the way. “I’ll be at the tavern ‘round the corner!” he called behind him.

“We could all have guessed that!” d’Artagnan yelled after him cheerfully. “So, what is this idea?”

“Go back to sparring with Athos, I’ll tell you when it’s time.” Aramis probably thought his smile was mysterious instead of just infuriating. As Athos went to take his starting position, Aramis grabbed his arm. “Get him on the ground and go for the throat,” he whispered in his ear. Athos raised an eyebrow, but nodded.

It was harder than he expected. He and d’Artagnan had fought so often at this point that they knew each other’s habits, reaction times, favorite moves. Athos put some power behind his strikes, more than he had dared to let out before. D’Artagnan fell back a step, eyes wide, stumbled, and fell. Athos felt an unpleasant squirm of guilt at the shock in his eyes, but he trusted Aramis; he drew back his sword.

“d’Artagnan! What would Porthos do?” Aramis called piercingly from the sideline. D’Artagnan’s eyes widened and Athos, beginning to get an idea of Aramis’ plan, drove the point of his sword towards d’Artagnan’s throat, forearm tensed and ready to flick the blade out of the way at the last minute to avoid impaling his apprentice.

“ _Hold_!” d’Artagnan yelped, the sound of it ringing like a clear bell throughout the yard. Athos felt his arm slow down as if the air he pushed through was suddenly molasses. His muscles locked; he commanded them to withdraw his blade, completely in vain.

“Dear God,” he whispered, truly stunned. D’Artagnan hadn’t sounded like Porthos, but that was Porthos’ power he felt, or at least something quite like it. D’Artagnan stared at the sword point and hand’s-length from his neck, and then up at Athos.

“It worked?”

“Magnificent!” Aramis cackled, and laughed harder when Porthos appeared around the corner at a dead sprint.

“I felt that from the inn, the hell did you do to the lad?” he gasped, then took one look at Athos, trapped in mid-thrust by d’Artagnan’s desperate cry, and began to chuckle. “You didn’t. Hah! Good on you, apprentice, show him how it’s done!”

“Stop laughing and tell me how to let him loose,” d’Artagnan demanded. Despite his effort to be serious, the corner of his mouth was lifting into an incredulous smile. “Your power hurts my throat, by the way.”

“Got to speak from your stomach.” Porthos walked in a contemplative circle around Athos, who tried in vain to turn his head enough to maintain eye contact. Though it was only his arm and shoulder that were trapped in the spell, that was more than enough to hold him fast in place. Porthos hummed thoughtfully.

“Can you get him free?” Aramis asked, seeming less invested in the answer than Athos thought was appropriate.

“’Course I can. But d’Artagnan, I want you to do it.” Porthos grinned. D’Artagnan scowled. “Lesson time. Close your eyes.” They both did so, Athos and Aramis watching with interest. “Thing about words is, they’re never just words. Words’re thoughts. Feelings. Secrets. Needs. And when you take a word and you dip it in magic, behind it comes all sorts of everything, the words behind the word that you didn’t even know you were sayin’.”

Athos had never heard Porthos talk about his power like this. From the look on Aramis’ face he had, but only in private, the kinds of conversations Athos knew they had but had never felt the right to remark upon. Athos was not going to admit out loud such a fanciful thought, but watching Porthos teach d’Artagnan about his Gift, he felt suddenly and strongly that every word Porthos said, magic-fueled or not, was something to be treasured.

“That’s why you never throw words together carelessly. You say something and you try to take it back when your heart is still tangled up in it, it’s never going to work out well. We clear our heart and our mind between every thing we work. Take a deep breath. Clear your head. Let go of whatever you said to hold him there, _really_ let go of it.” Porthos opened his eyes to watch d’Artagnan heave in a long breath, face smoothing into familiar meditation. “Now. What do you want to have happen? Picture it in your head, and then ask your magic for a word to make it so. Concentrate, take a slow breath, and say it.”

“ _Free_.” Athos felt it like a splash of cold water. His arm came free of the air with a sharp jerk, but the shock didn’t stop there, he felt it pierce all the way to the core of him and he stumbled for a step, surprised and off-kilter. Something felt a little different inside of him, though he could not pinpoint what. D’Artagnan was looking at him with surprise but also an expression Athos didn’t recognize, knowing but devoid of judgment or amusement. He wasn’t sure he liked how that expression seemed to see straight into the hollows of him, where things were missing and broken.

[ ](http://smg.photobucket.com/user/lynndyre/media/3MmagicAthos_zpsae30a07e.jpg.html)

“Gave it a little bit extra, did you?” Porthos smiled. “That’ll happen too. Words. They’re tricky.”

“Apparently.” D’Artagnan rubbed at his throat ruefully.

“We’re done for the day. Well done, d’Artagnan.” Athos, freed from the air and feeling oddly light inside, was in a mood to be magnanimous. D’Artagnan saluted him grinned at being released so early, saluted, and made for his rooms.

“D’Artagnan.” Porthos’ voice had that little bit extra in it, and d’Artagnan looked around immediately, having learned by now to pay attention when he sounded that way. “Your father. He’d be proud, you know. Of how you’re using your Gift.”

D’Artagnan’s face changed, dark eyes softening with startled emotion. “I…thank you,” he said, rough and uneven, and turned so swiftly that Athos knew he must be hiding tears.

“Not sure he was ready for that,” Aramis remarked as they watched him hurry away. Porthos shrugged.

“Needed to be said.”

“Right, and they call my power the volatile one. You get away with ‘it needed to be said’, how is that fair?”

~~~

After that first time d’Artagnan did not need to be at swordpoint to focus his magic. They all got used to him muttering “What would Aramis do? What would Athos do?”, the verbal key seemingly essential at least at this point. And, just as Athos had been sure it would eventually, his power leapt for new chances, new applications. All of the growth that had been so oddly missing before came in a rush.

“What would Valois do?” d’Artagnan whispered, about two and a half weeks after he’d discovered the core of his magic, and sniggered as a mini whirlwind skittered across the yard just in time to dump Porthos onto his back in a pile of hay.

“ _Idle hands, you brat_!” Porthos bellowed, and d’Artagnan only made it halfway through “What would Porthos—” in an attempt to counter it before his hands tucked themselves under his arse of their own accord and refused to move.

“Oh, very funny!”

“Yeah, I thought so. Clear your mind before fixing it,” Porthos ordered, dusting himself off and coming over to the bench.

“I know.” Athos and Aramis paused their fencing to watch as d’Artagnan took in a deep breath, blew it out again, and carefully said, “ _Mine_.” His hands came free; he grinned and snagged a piece of bread from the table with one of his newly-restored appendages. Athos nodded to Aramis and they joined the two of them on the benches, swords abandoned temporarily.

“So, Valois’ wind?” Porthos inquired. “You couldn’t do that yesterday.”

“He was at the tavern last night, we chatted a bit,” d’Artagnan explained around a mouthful of bread.

“About magic?”

“No, his wife mostly.” D’Artagnan sobered briefly at that—he had as of yet been still unable to contact Constance Bonaceuix—but shook it off.

“Fascinating. You got to know him better, and today you can use his power.” Aramis leaned forward, eyes bright. “I’ve never seen the like.”

D’Artagnan opened his mouth to reply, but the arrival of Master Treville in the yard forestalled him. “Who’s that?” he asked instead, gesturing to the cloaked figure Master Treville was escorting up to his office.

“Hm…why don’t you find out?” Aramis offered, challengingly. D’Artagnan grinned.

“I will.” Porthos threw up a quick ward with a muttered ‘ _Hold_ ’ as d’Artagnan closed his eyes and fell into his meditation breathing.

“What would Aramis do, what would Aramis do,” he mumbled to himself, and when he opened his eyes they were sparking silver.

“She was a woman. Master Treville knows her and defers to her. She is of the nobility, but I can’t see her face…I think that cloak might be magic?”

”In which case she must have a good reason for hiding her identity,” Athos cautioned, and d’Artagnan nodded and shook Aramis’ vision out of his eyes.

“An informant, do you think?”

“Possibly.” Master Treville appeared on the balcony above and motions to Athos. He tipped his hat to the three of them and stood. “Seems I’m about to find out.”

The cloak’s magic was strong; Athos could not make out the informant’s face even standing directly across Master Treville’s office from her.

“The Cardinal is planning a summoning.” Her voice was very even, measured, but he could pick out nothing distinctive about it. He thought perhaps she might have Spanish roots. “I need you to stop it.”

“Why, may I inquire?”

“Because he has the King convinced that whatever he is going to summon will enable us to go to war with Spain, and to win.”

“An outcome that you find distasteful.”

“War is an outcome none of us should wish for.” He could not find fault with that. He bowed his head slightly, and all at once realized who stood before him. He did his best to keep the knowledge out of his face.

“When does he intend to enact the ritual?”

“Within the week. The last archmage needed comes to Paris tomorrow.”

“That isn’t much time.”

“I have faith in you, Athos.”

He recognized it as a dismissal, and tried to keep his bow to that owed any mysterious noblewoman as he left.

“Well the easiest thing is to stop the ritual before they can start it,” Aramis pointed out when Athos explained the situation to them.

“But we still don’t know what it summons or how,” d’Artagnan said. Athos nodded.

“We need inside information, and I know how to get it.” Somehow, what he was going to say next didn’t choke Athos’ breath away the way it always had before. He didn’t understand what this new clarity was, why his heart beat steady when always before it had hurtled out of control at the thought of saying her name. “My wife. She is working with the Cardinal, I know she has a hand in this ritual.”

“Your wife? You…oh. OH, oh _no_.” d’Artagnan made a horrified face and actually sank to one knee in front of Athos, who was baffled by this response. “Athos I have a very large apology to make, I think.”

“You slept with my wife?” Athos repeated blankly when he finally understood what d’Artagnan was saying. He didn’t have any idea how to respond to that; his mind offered him no useful suggestions, merely pointed out that she had likely slept with plenty of other people as well in the last five years.

“I would never if I had known,” d’Artagnan repeated miserably.

“I know. I’m not angry.” What he was, Athos realized, was fed up. Five years of tethering himself to a memory, a woman who had never existed and had certainly not kept their marriage vows. It was time to end this, all of this. “In fact, it’s going to help you convince her you’re on her side.”

The plan was fairly simple: d’Artagnan would ingratiate himself with ‘Milady de Winter’ and gather enough information to discover when the ritual would be happening and what its purpose was. Athos was not happy with the part of the plan that involved him actually shooting d’Artagnan, but it had been necessary, and when d’Artagnan returned the next day he seemed to be recovering with no ill effects.

“Does she trust you?” he asked, and d’Artagnan made a face that said he was deeply amused by whatever was coming next.

“Almost. I just need to do one little thing first.”

“What’s that?”

“Kill Athos.”

Faking one’s own death turned out to be deeply tedious, though apparently his funeral had been quite moving. Athos had nothing to do while d’Artagnan attempted to get a meeting with the Cardinal except sit in the inn and hope things went well.

When d’Artagnan appeared at a run, Athos guessed that things were not proceeding according to plan.

“Aren’t you supposed to be meeting with the Cardinal right now?” Athos asked him, and d’Artagnan shook his head sharply and gasped,

“Jacques found me first. Constance is missing!”

Athos frowned. “Are you sure she’s not simply upset at the news of my death?”

“She’s been gone almost a full day! If she was upset and going to disobey her husband, wouldn’t she come looking for me first?” Athos had to admit that that did seem likely.

“Could she have been taken as insurance against your betrayal?” d’Artagnan looked on the verge of tears when he nodded.

“Milady, she as asking me about Constance yesterday. I thought I played it off successfully, but if I didn’t…”

“All right.” If Constance really had been kidnapped, d’Artagnan’s charade was at its end, in which case so was Athos’. “She was only so bold because she thinks I am dead. Let us disabuse her of that notion.”

About an hour after Athos showed his face back in public a messenger delivered the ransom letter, written in impeccable penmanship on a delicately decorated card. The contrast of form versus content was striking, because all it said was:

_Street of the Angels. Fifth hour. Come alone._

“You’re obviously not going to go alone,” Aramis said.

“She doesn’t expect me to. She wants us all there.” Of that, Athos was certain.

“It’s going to be a trap,” d’Artagnanon pointed out.

“Indubitably.”

Porthos studied his face for a moment, then shrugged.

“Well, we’d best get ready for it, then.”

~~

The street she had chosen was a good one for an ambush: narrow, with tall buildings on either side, and lots of twists and turns. Her accomplices were not making the most of the terrain, however. They apparently believed that ducking behind a door frame was enough to hide them.

“I count twenty.”

“Twenty-four,” Aramis corrected cheerfully. “How will they come at us?”

“They’ll let us get to her, and then come at us from behind. She wants to watch.” Athos’ mind was buzzing, torn between the reckless excitement of his magic before a fight and the terror, not of hired swords and guns but of seeing her once again face-to-face.

“Well that’s convenient, I like that plan.” Porthos gave one of the hidden assailants a neighborly sort of nod, and laughed when the man scrambled back further into his hiding place.

The street was silent except for the tread of their boots on the cobbles, and as predicted, none of the hidden men made a move. Beside him, Athos felt Aramis tense and his head come up, seeking as if for a scent.

“Problem?”

“Not sure. Keep going.”

Well, that was promising. The street narrowed as they went along it, then turned a sharp corner and broadened out into a cobbled square. A perfect spot to corner and surround a small force, say of four people. The square ended in an archway, and there she stood, hair dark and tumbling and chin raised, framed to perfect effect as a matter of course, half in light half in shadow. The sight of her still struck Athos like a blow.

“Constance isn’t there,” d’Artagnan hissed. She pushed herself away from the wall languidly and came towards them, her steps deliberate and her gaze painful to hold.

“Oh Athos, a coward to the last. Now your comrades will die with you.”

Athos whet his lips and took refuge behind a well-worn script, the Musketeer negotiating for a hostage. “Where is Madame Bonaceuix? I am here, as requested; let her go.”

“Does it matter where she is? The fact is, you didn’t save her.” Anne smiled sweetly, and gestured with one hand; Constance was suddenly next to her, dress bloody, hands pressed to a deep wound at her stomach.

“How could you?” Constance whispered, eyes wide, face pale. If Athos thought his wife’s gaze had been difficult to meet it was nothing on Constance’s, her eyes deep and agonied and full of the same reproach Athos saw every night in his nightmares. D’Artagnan gave a choked cry and tried to rush forward, only to be stopped by Porthos’ arm.

“It’s not nice to tell lies about respectable ladies like Constance. I think you’d better stick to the truth from now on,” Porthos said, threat in his smile. Power rolled out with the words like a thunderclap, and the image of Constance vanished. She grimaced.

“Charming. I suppose that explains why they keep you around.”

“Can we dispense with the tricks?” Aramis wasn’t bothering with his normal charm. He seemed almost _impatient_ , which was unusual to say the least. He was looking at her as though she was a distraction. “Give us Constance, we’ll arrest you, and then we can all…get on with our…” He trailed off, head turning as if searching for a far-away sound. D’Artagnan and Porthos shot him very concerned looks; she raised an eyebrow.

“The pride of the Musketeers, I see. Well, I have an alternative proposal.” She gestured, and from behind them men began to emerge from doorways and hiding places. “You lay down your weapons and get onto your knees.”

Athos slid a hand down to the pommel of his sword. This was it. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Porthos and d’Artgnan do the same. She laughed.

“Come now Athos, not even you can—”

Her voice broke off. Athos stared: at her throat, laid right below the ribbon that concealed her scar, had suddenly appeared a knife.

“Next time you kidnap someone, _my lady_ , you might want to make certain they’re not a mage first,” said Constance.

There was a moment of breathless silence, and then things happened very quickly. Porthos bellowed out a delighted laugh, turned around, and punched the man sneaking up behind him in the face so hard that he flew backwards; Athos felt a blade come towards him and parried it; Constance grabbed a gun from somewhere and shot a man attempting to skewer d’Artagnan, who was thrusting at another assailant and smiling more widely than Athos had ever seen; and Aramis took two steps back towards the wall of a house, staring at something none of them could see, and bellowed “STOP!”

Astonishingly, everyone did stop for a moment.

“Your line is ‘We surrender’.” He had to give her credit, there was a blade at her throat and she still sounded as though she believed she had the upper hand.

“Shut up! Something is very wrong!” Aramis reached a hand out toward the wall of the building, and then Athos felt it; underneath his feet the ground was shifting, cobbles and hard-packed earth suddenly feeling more like sand.

“What the bleedin’ ‘ell,” the man who had been trying to kill him whispered. Athos took the opportunity to club him with the pommel of his sword, and lost his balance in doing so. He tried to take a step, and the ground leapt up the meet his foot; Porthos caught him under one arm before he could fall.

“Aramis, what is this?” he shouted. Aramis was clutching his head now, the way he did when one of the bad visions took him. The three of them struggled to his side, sliding as the cobbles moved, and reached him just as the ground stilled again. “Aramis?”

“The Cardinal. The ritual, we’re too late.” Aramis looked up at them, his eyes pure gold and horrified. “It’s going to break free. So many people are going to die.”

“That’s nice. Now kill them!” Athos spun around. Constance had lost hold of her prisoner when the ground shook, and there was now a wall of hired men between them. At the command two of them stepped forward; Constance grabbed one by the wrist, smashed his hand into the wall until he surrendered his sword, clubbed him on the temple, and gored the other man through the side as the first one fell.

“Is Aramis all right?” she called over her shoulder.

“KILL HER!” Athos stepped forward to help her meet the next charge.

He could see Constance’s magic again, flowing as she moved. It was copper and familiar, familiar in the way even d’Artagnan’s had never been to him; it shone like the edge of a blade in the exact same way his did, and when it reached out into the air around her it tumbled men out of the way, knocked them back as if a musket had fired on them.

“Oh no, oh, stop that,” he heard her hissing at it, and realized abruptly that he had just acquired another student. One who, unlike d’Artagnan, apparently needed to work on control.

And then the ground bucked under them again, harder this time, and the men in front of them rippled away over a street that suddenly was heaving like the sea. Athos felt his stomach surge in answer; one of the men turned and vomited.

“What is going on?” one of them shouted.

“God-damned mages and their god-damned magic!” another answered. Athos noticed that the ranks around them were thinner than just their efforts would account for; men were melting away back down the street. There were still five men in formation, but when he glanced around the street, the only others were bodies on the ground, dead or unconscious.

“ _Stay out._ ” Athos felt Porthos’ power envelope him, warm and all-encompassing. One of the men tried to step towards them and jerked back, rebounding off an invisible wall.

“Forget them, what’s important now is the summon. All we’ve felt so far are its struggles. When it gets loose, it’s going to level half the city.” Aramis was suddenly next to him, leaning on Porthos and still looking into the distance with eyes bright gold.

“Do we know what it is?”

“Just that it’s big.” D’Artagnan joined them, brow knotted in a frown.

“So how do we stop it?” Constance asked. d’Artagnan looked at her. They had a moment of very intense eye contact, and then Constance glanced down, her hands fiddling in her skirt. When she looked up again her face was set. “Well? How?”

“Got our swords. Can’t we just fight it? Kill the thing like any other beast?” Sometimes Athos forgot that Porthos had never been trained by the Church, and that his former Masters had all been too intimidated by how power to instruct him in the basics of the different kinds of magic.

“A summoning is not a beast, it’s a creature made of pure magic,” Aramis explained. “It does not die when dealt a killing blow, merely returns to the summoner as power. But this one—” Another shudder shook the street, hard enough that Constance stumbled to her knees. D’Artagnan was there instantly, a hand on her elbow helping her back up, and Athos noted their joined hands with resignation. If they survived this ordeal, someone was going to have to have a talk with the lad about discretion. “No summoner alone could contain this, not after it breaks that circle.”

“So we can’t kill it,” Constance summarized. “Can we send it back wherever it came from? When you summon something, you have to summon it from somewhere.”

“Where _did_ it come from?”

They all looked to Aramis. He shrugged, mouth twitching in a way that said he realized the ridiculousness of what he was about to say.

“France.”

“Well let’s damn well put it back there, then.” Everyone turned to stare at Constance. She blushed at their shocked faces, but lifted her chin.

“Yes, let’s.” d’Artagnan was giving Constance that besotted look again, but he met the rest of their gazes squarely. “I have an idea.”

~~

“This is the worst plan I’ve ever heard.” Athos was not supposed to squash his apprentice’s creativity, but at the moment he felt an objection was truly necessary.

“Do you have a better one?” d’Artagnan had this look he gave, some strange mix of serious and arch, and somehow it never failed to convince Athos. He had to admit that, insane as it sounded, it was the only plan they had, and they didn’t have much time. Tremors were shaking the ground almost constantly now, and Athos could see a white light rising from the palace. The summoning, whatever it was, was about to break free.

“Besides, think of the look on people’s faces when you tell them you fenced the biggest summoning France has ever seen.” Porthos grinned. He had seated himself in the center of the courtyard in his meditation pose, and spared half a glance at the men still hamming on his protective barrier. “I’m going to have to let that down, you know.”

“I’ll handle them.” Constance was looking very pale, but she firmed her jaw when she felt Athos’ gaze. “Just…just concentrate. All of you.”

Aramis tipped his hat at her as he settled down next to Porthos. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to give you details, you know,” he warned. “I didn’t see the ritual that brought it here. I don’t even know if one exists to send it back. I’ll give you whatever I find, but…”

“I’ll manage. Sounds fun, really. Ready?” Porthos raised his eyebrows, looking around the group. Athos followed his gaze, took in the shades of apprehension and fear and excitement—really, Aramis?—that he found there.

“Ready,” he said, and drew his sword.

Porthos took a deep breath. His barrier collapsed, and Constance stepped to place herself in between the hired men and their group. Athos didn’t think that they would be foolish enough to attack mages in the middle of a working, but _she_ was back there still somewhere, and his ability to predict her actions had never been reliable.

The ground roiled again, but this time with it came a snapping noise, not loud but insistent, just below the threshold of actual sound.

“That’s it, it’s free! And I don’t know about you, but I’d want to get as far away from the Cardinal as quickly as possible.” Aramis looked to Porthos. Porthos grinned, steadied himself, and spoke.

“ _Come here_ ,” Porthos commanded, not forceful but compelling, a low roll of sound that bounced around the courtyard and up into the sky, rocking through the clouds like thunder. There was a breathless moment…and then it came.

Athos had vaguely supposed the summoning would take the form of an animal, or perhaps a fantastic beast. He had seen drawings of summonings before, magical steeds or attacking monsters or insubstantial companions. But perhaps the magnitude of this working, and Aramis’ insistence that its home was France itself, ought to have warned him, because what rose into the sky above the palace and came for them on massive, translucent wings, was an angel.

[ ](http://smg.photobucket.com/user/lynndyre/media/3Mmagicangel_zps3f97c3e8.jpg.html)

Its wings alone spanned greater than a man’s height, and they shone with a hard, brutal white light. Its face was almost obscured by the same shine of its halo, but Athos could see its eyes, blank and cold, and the pitiless set of its mouth. It looked, in fact, like his nightmares; like retribution and judgment come at last, ready to finally call him to account for his sins.

In its left hand it held a spear, and this last point was what Athos swiftly became most concerned about as it made straight for them.

“Well that’s blasphemous,” Aramis noted blankly.

“And just a bit grandiose, really? What kind of use is that, on a practical basis? You’re not very well going to ride around on it.” Constance was keeping one eye on the men gaping upwards at the angel, but the rest of her attention appeared to be devoted to giving the Cardinal’s ultimate summoning the same kind of critique she would a new order of substandard cloth.

“Is that one of the angels from the King’s crest? Lord, he’s a bit angrier in person, ain’t he?” Porthos sounded supremely unconcerned.

Athos smiled, helplessly, and brought his sword up as it came.

He met the strike of its spear and felt the shock all the way up his arm and into his skull. He stumbled backwards, but so did the summoning, backwheeling in the air above the courtyard. Its face did not change, but it opened its mouth, and an unbelievably loud sound, like a thousand trumpets and the clash of a million bells, emerged. Athos felt deafened by it but he couldn’t be, because tinnily behind him, he could hear Aramis and Porthos speaking.

“See anything yet?”

“Yes, it’s…I don’t see a tether, it wasn’t summoned from anywhere specific, it’s going to be more metaphysical than that.”

“Oh joy.”

“I need its name. That will…once I get that the rest will follow. Athos, keep it busy! D’Artagnan, come help me.”

“What would Aramis do, what would Aramis do…”

“You know, some day we’re going to have to break you of that habit.”

“Yes, this is the perfect time to bring that up.”

The angel wheeled and bayed again, the horrible trumpet sound buffeting Athos’ ears. While he was still reeling from the sound it dove, sharp like a striking hawk. He parried, but this time instead of disengaging the angel struck again, and again. Athos knocked the blows aside, pivoted, made a testing strike against its flank that had it flapping its wings in a riot of wind and light, and the fight was on.

It was unlike any battle he’d ever been in, with an enemy somewhere in between real and not. He scored hits, or at least he thought he did, but his sword slid through with no resistance met. And if he never again had to fight an enemy that both had a weapon with a longer range than his _and_ could fly, Athos would be perfectly content with that. He found himself drawing on more of his magic than he had ever used to fight a human, and to his astonishment, for the first time he got the sense that his magic might have an end. There might be a point where there was not enough inside of him to fuel his next strike.

“Porthos, you’ll need this, don’t say it yet though, the name comes first.”

“What is this, Latin? How’m I supposed to do anything with that? What’s it even say?”

“It says ‘we don’t want you here, bugger off’.”

“…seriously?”

“Close enough.”

The angel had realized it could buffet Athos with the wind from its wings, and knock him around with them as well. It was a risky maneuver in many ways, since it gave him the opportunity to strike at the exposed appendages, but Athos was much more fragile than it was. He stumbled sideways directly into a sweeping cut from the spear, and hissed in pain at the long line of fire it scoured down his arm. He switched sword hands, and attacked again. That spear burned where it struck, as if he was being stabbed at by a heated poker.

“Aramis,” he managed, gritting his teeth and parrying another blow head-on. “Any time that you would like to conclude this.”

“Trying! It’s a bit bright in there you know, it’s not exactly easy to see to the core of a magical being!” Aramis yelled back.

Athos called on more of his power. His physical body was failing him, his knees threatening to buckle and his arms trembling, but his magic could fix that for a little while longer. He hadn’t felt this way since the very early days after Anne’s death, when he had pushed his body past the breaking point again and again, thrown himself wildly into whatever fights he could stumble upon or incite. It had been a long time since then, and his bones and magic both protested the ill-treatment.

The spear was harrying him now, taking quick little stabs at him that he reacted quickly enough to block only half the time. More points of fire sprang up around his body, but worse, he knew the angel was testing his defenses, seeing how slow his reactions had become. It was waiting for an opening.

She was watching, he remembered suddenly. Was she hoping for him to lose?

“Athos, look out!”

D’Artagnan’s warning came too late. Athos felt the breath punched out of him. He stumbled two steps backwards, hands going automatically to the shaft of the spear that was now buried straight through his core. The pain hit a moment later, overwhelming, obliterating; he tried to scream and instead his stomach only spasmed around the blade, pushing choking noises out of his open mouth.

“Athos!” He hated hearing Aramis sound so tortured.

“Don’t!” A scuffle behind him, someone holding someone else back. “If you want to help him, find the damn thing’s name so we can get him to a doctor! Find it _now_!”

The angel looked at him. It seemed a little confused that he was not dead yet, but then seemed to decide that was easily remedied; it raised a wing and prepared to bring it down onto him. Athos closed his eyes.

The blow didn’t come. He opened his eyes. The shining wing was right above him, but it hadn’t descended, because there was a substandard blade there instead, chipped and not well-looked-after. Attached to it was Constance, shining with copper and terror.

“I don’t know how to do this!” she shouted.

“Get out,” he managed, in horror. She had been well out of the way. She, of all of them, had had a chance of surviving this.

“No, I’m pretty sure that’s not it!” She thrust the wing away from him, then whirled to block the next strike. He could see copper threads rushing to reinforce her arms and shoulders, trying to handle the strain.

“We’ve lost. Retreat, get—get them out of here—”

She wasn’t listening. Athos tried to move his hands, to gesture her out of harm’s way, but he could not, they seemed fixed to the spear in his sternum. Something was dripping down his fingers. Probably blood, though how he was bleeding around a weapon made of pure magic he did not know.

The angel tugged on the blade embedded inside of him. Athos, unprepared for such cruelty and the burst of pain it brought, let out an awful groan. It tugged again, and he realized what was happening: Constance was harrying it, chopping at its wings and sides, and it wanted its weapon back so it could gut her too.

“No,” he croaked, and held on as it pulled. Nothing he had known of pain before this moment compared, but he held on; he felt his feet slide along the ground as the angel slowly pulled him in, reeling him in like a fish on a line.

Then there was an arm around his shoulders, holding him in place, and his feet stopped.

“What are you doing here?” he gasped out. d’Artagnan was supposed to be helping Aramis, and instead he was here, one hand on Athos’ chest and one reaching for Constance, his hair in disarray and eyes wild.

“ _Helping_.” That was Porthos’ power in his voice, but Athos didn’t understand what he was trying to do.

“It’s too late.” He could barely hear his own voice. A sick, wet rattle was building in his lungs. “We’re done. All right? Get out of here. It’s over. I’ll stay.”

“I’m sick of your insistence on staying behind.” Constance desperately turned aside a wing coming straight for d’Artagnan’s head; he didn’t seem to notice. His eyes, Athos realized, were glowing silver, sparking the way Aramis’ did. But not nearly as bright as the knot of silver power at his heart; it was shining too bright to gaze at directly. “I’m done with watching people cut down because they tried to face everything alone. Athos.

“ _LET US HELP_.”

It hit him like a wave, rushing up from his feet to his crown. Athos’ vision left him for a moment, and when it returned the pain was gone. He yanked the spear out, and immediately Constance plucked it from the ground, twirled it around, and stabbed the angel straight through the fleur de lise on its chest. It shrieked, a terrible inhuman sound; Athos lent his weight to Constance’s on the spear, keeping it pinned.

Behind him Porthos sucked in a huge gulp of air. Athos felt it; felt Porthos’ lungs expand, felt Aramis’ Sight chase down the length of that spear into the core of this strange summoning, felt d’Artagnan gathering all of them, feeding them back to each other. Athos and Constance held, Porthos breathed, and Aramis Saw.

“ _Amê de France_! Porthos, Porthos _go_!”

Porthos did. The angel thrashed and screamed on the end of the spear as he began to speak, the Latin rolling from his tongue like the toll of Church bells.

“ _Amê de France, solvemus te,_ _bellicus perbonus est_ ,”

A circle appeared, shining bright like fire against the cobbestones. Its lines were bronze, throbbing in time with the rhythm of Porthos’ voice, but Athos saw all of them in there as well: Aramis’ gold, Constance’s copper, his own steel grey, and through it all d’Artagnan’s silver, winding them together. It did not look like the ritual circle they’d seen in the drawing, not at all, but it enclosed the angel fully.

It did not fight. Athos had expected it to, considering the ferocity with which it had attacked him, but the moment the lines of the circle met around it it stilled. It looks to Porthos, to all of them really, with its blank shining eyes, and then bowed its head, like a courtier leaving a party. There was a flash of light, and it was gone.

“ _Amen_ ,” Porthos said, and fell over.

“Are you all right?” Athos turned to face the others for the first time in what felt like years. Aramis was kneeling, rubbing a hand over his face tiredly, his exhaustion intense and his headache splitting. Porthos nodded and waved an ‘all good here’ arm from the ground.

“Out of magic. All gone. Ouch,” he mumbled, and threw an arm over his face.

“Uhm, excuse me, are _you_ all right? You were impaled!” d’Artagnan yanked up the edge of Athos’ shirt, which Athos would have felt to be a grave imposition two hours ago but currently couldn’t find the strength to mind. He looked down; there was blood smeared across his skin, but no wound.

“What did you do?” he asked d’Artagnan.

“Saved your life, apparently.”

“Aside from that.”

“You’re _welcome_.” D’Artagnan dropped his shirt, threw up his hands, and stumbled backwards as Constance cannoned into his embrace and kissed him so hard he almost fell right over Porthos.

“Did that really just happen?” she asked, breathlessly.

“I think it did.”

“Unfortunately.” Athos froze. He had forgotten she was still there, watching; all of her hired men had run, but she remained, her hair in disarray on one cheek smudged from her proximity to the fight. “I was told to keep you out of the way of the ritual. I suppose this means I failed.”

“It does,” he agreed. Somehow there was enough strength in him to walk over to her. Her breath came faster the closer he got; his did not. “It means it’s over.”

He realized the truth of it as he said it. It was done. Her partnership with the Cardinal would not survive her failure, but more importantly, the place in his heart that felt moored to her, constantly anchored to and drowning in a sea of memory and regret, were for once still and quiet. Perhaps he was just too tired to mourn, for once.

“Get on your knees,” he said, and pointed the sword at her throat.

He wondered if the look on her face, the bitter acceptance, was anything like how he had looked when she held a dagger to his throat in the burning house that had once been their home together.

“Kill me, then. And do a better job of it than last time,” she said, and he realized they were nothing alike. Where in him there had been relief, in her there was defiance, neverending.

“Athos.” Aramis, Porthos, Constance and d’Artagnan had come up behind him. Whatever he did next, he would have to do with them watching, and that more than anything gave him pause.

“You don’t have to do this,” Aramis said. Which of them, Athos wondered, would truly understand if he did? Aramis, who killed in battle but never out of passion? Porthos, who believed so passionately in a world where justice was truly equitable and was so bitterly disappointed at every turn? D’Artagnan, who had given the man he thought had killed his father a chance to prove otherwise? Constance, who had killed men that very day without hesitation, and whose hands had still been so gentle when she helped Athos to his feet?

He didn’t want to stand apart from them, he realized. He wanted them here, at his back, where they belonged. He lowered his sword.

“Go to Spain, England, anywhere, I don’t care. But if you ever show your face in Paris again, I will kill you. Without hesitation.”

She left. She left, and the parting was like a glorious sigh of air: this time he got to watch her walk away, alive, unharmed, but _gone_. She said there would be no peace for either of them, not in this life, but it wasn’t true. He felt peace now.

Athos had had a brother and a wife, once. And then he had had nothing, and been nothing, just a drunk with a sword. Now he had something, again, the fact so solid and undeniable that he could not escape it: he could feel it beat inside of him to the rhythm of his heart.

 _I don’t feel quite right_ , d’Artagnan said, clearly, inside of his head. Athos felt the words reverberate, as if a string inside of him had been plucked, up from his feet through the core of him.

 _Dear God_. That was Aramis, unmistakable, bright and sweet and clear. _That’s going to get uncomfortably intimate very quickly._

 _This isn’t funny! Whoever is doing this you stop it right now!_ Constance’s voice was so strong. It rang like a bell, its echoes bounced off all of the empty spaces inside of Athos. He felt crowded inside, and he could not discern if that was a good thing or not, but he thought it might be.

 _Oh hell. This is going to be interesting._ Porthos’ voice was so warm.

 _Quiet, all of you, I can’t hear myself think,_ Athos commanded, and allowed himself a smile as he yanked her locket from his neck and threw it away.

~~~

None of them really wanted to return Constance to her home, but it was generally agreed that the matter of her frantic husband did need to be resolved.

As it turned out, they were right to have hurried. They arrived to find the house in a furor, because apparently, Monsieur Bonaceuix had tried to kill himself. He was a sorry sight, shaking in the kitchen chair. Constance rushed to him, and the babble of her thoughts flooded all of their minds, _You idiot, what have you done, you fool, how could you._

“I thought you’d abandoned me. I couldn’t face life without you, so I tried to end it all.” Athos grit his teeth. It was like looking at himself in a distorted glass: facing life without her had been hard, but he liked to think that had she merely left him, had their story been that simple and easy, he would have had the grace to accept it.

“Constance, I love you! I love you so much.” His sentiment seemed genuine, certainly, but Aramis’ disgust crept into Athos’ head.

 _Love does not mean holding one’s beloved with you by force and threats_ , he commented acidly.

 _Shhh, let Constance think_ , Porthos scolded.

“I won’t reproach you or ask you where you’ve been. But know this,” something dark and ugly was in Monsieur Bonaceiux’s voice now, “if you ever leave me again, my worthless life will be on your conscience.”

Constance stood up, abruptly, dropping her husband’s hands. _How dare he! How dare he talk to me this way!_ her voice sounded in Athos’ head, pure fury. When she spoke aloud, her tone was the coldest Athos had ever heard it.

“I’ve got six lives already on my conscience today. Six men I killed, with a sword and a gun. Maybe if you’d asked where I’d been, I could have told you that, instead of you pretending to forgive me. You think the sum of my entire life is obeying you or leaving you for him!” d’Artagnan blinked when she gestured at him without even looking around.

“I spent today saving lives. While you were in here trying to face living without me, I was protecting France! You don’t care about that. You don’t care where I’ve been, what I’ve done, how I feel. You love me? What about the woman who fought a battle today, do you love her?”

 _My God she’s magnificent when she gets angry_ , Aramis and d’Artagnan thought almost simultaneously.

 _Shut it!_ Porthos growled. _Can’t you see the woman’s saying something important?_

“You might be my husband, but you don’t know anything about me. If you did you wouldn’t test me like this. Six lives I destroyed already today, and right now, I’m willing to make it seven.

“I don’t want you to hurt yourself. I don’t want you to die. But I won’t stay here a moment longer.”

She left, out the front door, head held high. Athos stayed long enough to watch Monsieur Bonaceiux slump in defeat, then followed her.

“I don’t think he’ll do it,” d’Artagnan assured Constance as she marched down the street.

“I don’t care if he does!” she exclaimed, and then sobbed. “And I don’t care that I don’t have anywhere to live, or what people will say, or that I’m covered in blood and dust and dirt and I don’t have any other clothes!” By the end she was speaking through tears, and turned her face gladly into Aramis’ shoulder when he put an arm around her.

“You fought alongside Musketeers today, madame. I think you’ll find we take good care of our own,” he soothed. It seemed like an odd method of comforting a crying woman to Athos, but then, what did he know?

 _Very little_ , Aramis responded happily. Athos frowned. Whatever quirk of magic was giving them this access to each other’s minds, he wanted it gone now.

~~~

“Well, it seems to be permanent.”

“Pardon?” Athos stared at the Mother Superior, certain he’d heard that wrong. It had taken several days to find someone versed in magical mishaps, but this woman was the leader of a convent that specialized in studying and understanding magic. She was also about seventy years old and cantankerous, which Athos found soothing.

“Don’t blame me for your own folly. Look there, see? Your magics are all mixed together now, the mind-link is a result of that.” She gestured to the bowl of water in which she’d been scrying Athos’ magical core. He looked inside, and had to agree; though his own steel grey was predominant, swirls of the other four’s powers were visible within it, and did not seem easily extricable.

“What other effects may it have?” he asked.

“Hard to say.” She waved a hand over the bowl and it cleared again. “It’s possible you might be able to borrow power from each other, in amount if not in kind, if your own stores run low. You may acquire abilities relating to each other’s powers.”

 _Fascinating_ , Aramis commented from across the room.

 _Out!_ At least Athos had learned by now how to shoo the others out of his head when he did not wish them there, which was usually.

“It does seem likely that you’ll want to stay in fairly close proximity. One of you goes haring off to England, I don’t think the rest of you would be too comfortable.”

“How close is fairly close?”

“I really couldn’t say.”

Athos and Aramis rejoined Porthos, Constance and d’Artagnan outside the abbey to convey what they’d been told. Athos felt his shoulders settle at the five of them being together again, and realized that ‘fairly close’ might be a problem.

 _She said it will probably get easier with time_ , Aramis reminded him.

_And if it doesn’t?_

_We’ll work something out. Except…well, the four of us, that’s easy. But Constance?_ They glanced at Constance; she met their eyes, and shrugged.

 _What am I supposed to do? I’m not a Musketeer_.

Athos was reminded suddenly of the cloaked figure in Master Treville’s office, and the realization of who the noblewoman with the King’s ear who so wanted to avoid was with Spain must be. _Actually…I think I have a solution to that._

~~~

The throne room of the palace was crowded with courtiers, many more than a simple announcement of commission would warrant. Their curious faces craned from every angle at the two figures who knelt side-by-side before the thrones.

The King rose.

“d’Artagnan of Lupiac in Gasconny. You have shown great courage and skill in your defense of our kingdom. I hereby commission you into my Musketeers Regiment.” He touched his sword upon each of d’Artagnan’s shoulders, and Athos stepped forward to slide the crest of the Musketeers onto his arm. D’Artagnan looked solemn, thoughtful even; _thank you thank you thank you_ his voice babbled on a constant loop in their heads.

The King seated himself again, and then turned to the woman at his side. The Queen rose, and retrieved the sword with some gingerness. Athos felt a rush of affection, for a woman who could cow the Cardinal into sitting silent and white-lipped at her side during this ceremony but still faltered at the sharp edges of an unfamiliar weapon.

“Constance Bonaceuix. You have shown great courage and grace in your defense of this kingdom. I hereby commission you as the first of the Queen’s Musketeers Regiment.”

Constance’s hair screened her bowed head as the Queen carefully tapped her shoulders with the blade, but her wonder bust in their heads, bright and exhilarating. Aramis stepped forward to slide the crest onto her arm, and then she and d’Artagnan rose to their feet together, to applause that almost drowned out the scandalized whispered. Athos kept an eye on the most disgruntled courtiers, and made it a point to remember their names and faces; if they weren’t trouble now, they were going to be.

 _Cheer up Athos. This is going to be excellent_ , Aramis predicted confidently.

 _Yes it is,_ Porthos thought at him serenely. _Now stop making eyes at the Queen_.


End file.
